INTERNATIONAL

HUMAN RIGHTS
LEXICON
SUSAN MARKS
AND
ANDREWCLAPHAM
OXFORD
UNIVlIIlSITY puss
Development
In recent years human rights have become an important part of debates,
policy-making and activism in the field of development. 'Rights-based'
approaches to development, premised on the idea that strategies and
programmes should be informed by attention to human rights, are now
widely endorsed. And just as human rights have entered the arena of
development, so too development has become a key issue in discussions,
activities and norm-making within the field ofhuman rights. One mani-
festation of this is the emergence of the 'right to development',
embodying the notion that development is the basis of a human right
in itself.
At first sight the marriage of development and human rights seems
like the most auspicious possible union: two beneficent ideas and
practices dedicated to making the world a better place coming
together and strengthening each o t ~ e r in the process. On closer
inspection, however, a more nuanced assessment is called for, which
takes into account the limitations on both sides and in their combi-
nation. We discuss various limitations of the human rights approach
throughout this book. As to development, it is striking that the effort
to establish links with human rights coincides with a time when the
contradictory and frequendy counter-productive character of the
development enterprise could scarcely be plainer. Mter more than
five decades of development activity, improved conditions in some
places and at some levels coexist with an increasing gap between
the world's richest and poorest, declining per capita incomes in about
a third of all countries, and the impoverishment of millions who
previously had viable livelihoods. Arturo Escobar speaks to a widely
shared experience when he observes that '[u]nderdevelopment
became the subject of political technologies that sought to erase it
92 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
from the face of the Earth, but that ended up multiplying it to
infinity' .1
Can human rights help to reorient development in ways that might
have better prospects ofrealising the promise of a more equal world? Or
do rights-based approaches to development simply prop up a venture
that is failing and, as some argue, was misconceived from the outset? And
what of the recognition of development as a human right? Can that
enhance the capacity of human rights to contribute to the more equal
distribution of resources and opportunities? Or does the idea of a right
to development serve only to weaken long-established rights and
responsibilities? Does it indeed point up shortcomings of human rights
law more generally? To some analysts of development, a major part of
the problem is that approaches to development have treated the issues
involved as technical questions for experts in economics, urban plan-
ning, public services, engineering and government, rather than as con-
testable political questions for those affected. Finally, then, can human
rights help to refocus attention on the political stakes of development
strategies and programmes? Or do they simply reinforce the depolitici-
sation of issues, and add yet another layer of technocratic power? In
what follows we take up these and related questions.
Development
The project of <development' is generally traced to the inaugural
address of United States President Harry S. Truman in 1949. As one
of the components of his agenda for 'peace and freedom', Truman
announced a 'program for development', designed to make 'the benefits
of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the
improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas'. As he explained,
'[g]reater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key
to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application of mod-
ern scientific and technical knowledge'.2 Science and technology, then,
1 A. Escobar, Encountering Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1995),52 .
2 rnaugural Address. 20 January 1949, Inaugural Addresses of tlte Presidents rif the United
States:from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989 (Washington, DC: US GPO,
1989).285. 290.
DEVELOPMENT 93
2long with capital investment, were to be the means for bringing to
'underdeveloped' regions the advantages enjoyed by 'developed'
i..Jcieties. In this regard, Truman was quite candid, and indeed emphatic,
;oout the fact that a major aim of his 'program for development' was
:0 establish or consolidate United States influence, and discourage
:he underdeveloped regions from turning to communism. Truman's
programme was later taken up by the United Nations, and, as decoloni-
5ation unfolded, a development agenda was embraced by the govern-
ments of most newly independent states. Thus was set in train a process
which over the course of the succeeding years would lead (rather like
human rights) to an extraordinary proliferation ofinstitutions, initiatives
experts, as well as to a new object of academic study and activist

By the last decades of the 20th century, the tenor of much of this
smdy and activism was sharply critical. In one of the harshest assess-
ments, published in 1992, Wolfgang Sachs denounces development as a
dangerous illusion or comforting myth, now best abandoned. 'Delusion
md disappointment, failures and crimes have been the steady compan-
ions ofdevelopment,' he writes, 'and they tell a common story: it did not
work,.3 More than that, he contends, the premises on which it is based
no longer make sense. In the first place, Truman's idea of progress
through limitless growth based on the application of science and tech-
nology has been called into question.We have become aware that indus-
trialisation, the technicalisation of agriculture and consumer capitalism
i:arry high environmental costs and risks. Far, then, from holding up the
United States and other industrialised countries as models which other
nations should seek to emulate, we should be working to transform
these 'developed' societies. Secondly, the Cold War context which gave
rise to development no longer exists. At the same time, development
assistance remains difficult to separate from the efforts of key donors
to build strategic and economic relationships, shape international trade,
and strengthen particular elites within target countries. The lack of
accountability to ordinary citizens, and especially the poorest among
them, continues to mean that development activities might benefit
some, but do little for many more. Indeed, and this is Sachs's third
3 W. Sachs, 'Introduction' inW. Sachs (ed.), TIIC Development Dictionary (London: Zed
Books, 1995), I.
94 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
point, experience has shown that in many contexts modernisation has
made conditions oflife significantly worse. As he writes,
The old ways have been smashed, the new ways are not viable. People are caught
in the deadlock ofdevelopment: the peasant who is dependent on buying seeds,
yet finds no cash to do so; the mother who benefits neither from the care of
her fellow women in the community nor from the assistance ofa hospital; the
clerk who had made it in the city, but is now laid off as a result ofcost-cutting
lneasures ...
4
Finally, Sachs, in common with many others, highlights the way develop-
ment portrays people in underdeveloped regions as having only problems
and needs, but no agency and few resources. From this perspective, devel-
opment is problematic because it fosters an image (and, on the part ofthose
concerned, a self-image) of deficiency. Instead offocusing only on what is
lacking, and destroying what is there, we should be paying more attention
to the possibilities, energies, processes and ideas within communities. More
concretely, we should stop treating poor people as consumers of initiatives
developed elsewhere, and start attending to the strategies through which
they are managing to improve their own circumstances.
These concerns are very widely shared. For most analysts, however, they
are reasons not to jettison the development concept, but rather to rethink
it and reorient the practices it has spawned. As Maggie Black explains,
despite the poor record of development, or indeed because ofthat record,
'this is not the moment to abandon the vision of a fairer wodd' which
development may serve to project. For '[ilf machinery exists to address
"world poverty", optimism insists that it be put to better use'.s In fact, of
course, approaches to development have been subject to critique and revi-
sion from the very beginning. What has changed in recent decades is the
need to confront challenges which affect not only the means of develop-
ment, but also its ends, and not only its prescriptions, but also its premises.
Efforts to reorient development to meet these challenges are reflected
in a series of qualifiers which have come to be attached to the word
'development'. Thus, 'human development' seeks to shift the emphasis
frOIn economic growth to social conditions, and hence from assessments
4 W Sachs, 'Introduction' inW Sachs (ed.), The Development Dictionary (London: Zed
Books, 1995),3.
5 M. Black, The No-Nonsense Guide to Intemational Development (London: Verso,
2002), 27-8.
DEVELOPMENT 95
based exclusively on gross national product per capita to assessments based
alsu 011 social indicators (life expectancy; infant mortality, literacy, access to
services, etc.). 'Sustainable development' directs attention to the need to
avoid- environmental harms, husband natural resources, and consider
precautionary approaches to risk. 'Social development' calls for moves to
enhance the extent to which development activities benefit marginalised
and vulnerable groups. And 'participatory development' highlights the
importance of involving those affected (and in the case of 'women-in-
development', women in particular) in the framing, implementation and
evaluation of development schemes. Human development has been
refined and linked to sustainable, social and participatory development in
successive issues of the Human Development Report, an annual publication
of the United Nations Development Programme since 1990. In 2000 the
title of the UNDP's Human Development Report was 'Human Rights and
Human Development'. This points to a further dimension of recent
efforts to reorient development, to which we now turn.
Development and human rights
What is the relationship between development and human rights? On
one account, respect for human rights can be an obstacle to develop-
ment. This account has been elaborated in connection with arguments
about the significance for human rights of'Asian values'.6 According to
one proponent of these arguments, Bilahari Kausikan, 'experience sees
order and stability as preconditions for economic growth, and growth as
the necessary foundation of any political order that claims to advance
human dignity'.7 It follows for him that developing societies may need
to postpone human rights to some extent, to provide a secure, reliable
and unified context within which economic development can be pursued.
While Kausikan proposes that this applies especially to civil and politi-
cal rights, such as the right to free speech, the right to free assembly and
constraints on preventive detention, many commentators have pointed
out that economic and social rights are, if anything, more commonly
and comprehensively put to one side, as governments concentrate on
boosting economic growth. At any rate, the general point, as expressed
6 Regarding 'Asian values', see Culture*.
7 B. Kausikan, 'Asia's Different Standard' 92 Foreign Policy (1993),24,35.
\
96 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
also by another exponent of the Asian values thesis, Kishore Mahhuhani,
is that human rights advocates have got things the wrong way around. We
need to start putting 'the horse before the cart', he writes, by 'promoting
economic development through good government before promoting
democracy' and human rights.
8
In an influential book published in 1999 Amartya Sen argues that this
way of approaching the relationship between development and human
rights proceeds from a fundamental misconception about the nature of
development.
9
To consider whether respect for human rights is or is not
conducive to development is to presuppose that development means
only economic growth. As we have seen, however, many argue that
development must rather be understood in terms ofhuman development
and related concepts. More specifically, Sen proposes that development
must be understood as a 'process of expanding the real freedoms that
people enjoy' .10 To ask whether respect for hunlaIl rights is or is not
conducive to development is thus to miss the point that human rights are
themselves constituent components of development. As he contends, the
relevance of substantive freedoms, such as the right to political
participation or to basic education,
does not have to be fresWy established through their indirect contribution to
the growth of GNP or to the promotion of industrialization. As it happens,
these freedoms and rights are also very effective in contributing to economic
progress ... But while the causal relation is indeed significant, the vindication
of freedoms and rights provided by this causal linkage is over and above the
directly constitutive role of these freedoms in development.
l1
On Sen's account, growth of gross national product remains an impor-
tant means of promoting development, but it cannot be regarded as an
end in itsel Rather, as indicated, the end of development is, for him, to
expand the real freedoms that people enjoy. This is linked to the idea
that poverty is a matter not just of low incomes but rather of what he
calls 'capability deprivation', understood as deprivation with respect to
the substantive freedoms a person 'enjoys to lead the kind of life he or
she has reason to value' .12 If the goal of development is to redress capa-
bility deprivation by expanding freedoms, then it calls for the removal
" K. Mahbubani, 'The West and the Rest' 28 The National Illterest (1992),3, II.
9 A. Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
10 Ibid., 3. 11 Ibid., 5. 12 Ibid., 87.
DEVELOPMENT 97
of all the 'major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor
economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect
of public facilities as well as intolerance of overactivity of repressive
states,.13 .
Continuing in the line of Sen's conception of development as free-
dom, the UNDP's Human Development Report for ~ o o o proposes view-
ing human development and human rights in a. more integrated
manner. The Report highlights a number of benefits which human
rights can bring to approaches to human development. First, human
rights connect human development with the idea that others have duties
to facilitate and enhance development. As observed in the Report, rights
imply claims on others that they should ensure, or co-operate in ensur-
ing, access to some social good. In turn, this insistence on justified claims
and correlative duties implies such concepts as accountability, culpabil-
ity and responsibility. Human rights thus broaden the focus of develop-
ment analysis, to encompass a consideration of the 'actions, strategies
and efforts that different duty bearers undertake to contribute to the ful.,-
filment of specified human rights' and hence to the advancement of
corresponding facets of human development.
14
They also broaden the
focus to encompass a consideration of the responsibilities of different
actors when those rights go unfulfilled. Secondly, human rights connect
human development with norms that require attention to the conse-
quences of development strategies for diverse individuals and groups.
Among other things, this entails setting limits on the extent to which
governments and others may rely upon utilitarian logics. In the words
of the Report, 'individual rights express the limits on the losses that
individuals can permissibly be allowed to bear, even in the promotion of
noble soci41 goals' .15 Finally, human rights connect human development
with a tradition in which protection is key. With human rights comes ~
reminder that norms and institutions must be put in place to provide
security for hUlllan devel0plllent achievements. In thiS way human
rights amplify the 'factual concentration' of development thinking,
encouraging scrutiny of the 'extent to which the gains are socially
protected against potential threats' .16
13 Ibid., 3. See further chap. 6.
14 UNDp, Human Development Report 2.000: Human Rights and Human Development
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 21. 15 Ibid., 22-
16 Ibid., .22-3_
98 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
Continuing somewhat further along the line of these elaborations or
c
;
the concept of human development, the UN High Commissioner fori
Human Rights has issued a number of statements detailing the f e a t u r ~ ........
and benefits of 'rights-based' approaches to development.
17
Among the
benefits highlighted is again the point that rights-based approaches can
enhance the degree to which there exists an authoritative basis for advo-
cacy and for claims on resources. The UNHCHR also stresses the value
of the explicit linkage provided with all human rights. As the Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights pointed out in 1990, develop-
ment cooperation activities by no means 'automatically contribute to the
promotion of respect for economic, social and cultural rights'. To avoid
harm, rights have to be taken into account at every stage.
18
Rights-based
approaches create 'integrated safeguards against unintentional harm by
development projects', by requiring that measures ofprotection be incorp-
orated into development plans, policies and projects. Alongside these
advantages, rights-based approaches are said to be distinctive in attaching
particular importance to four issues and their interrelation: participation,
accountability, non-discrimination and empowerment. Participation calls
for the involvement of beneficiaries in ways that go beyond formal con-
sultation and enable them instead to direct development processes.
Accountability is concerned with identifying specific duties and duty-
bearers and thus moving development cooperation from the domain of
charity to that of obligation. Non-discrimination highlights the need to
guard against reinforcing pre-existing asymmetries of power and
resources, by giving express consideration to the implications of develop-
ment plans for disadvantaged groups. And empowerment refers to the
idea that development activities should be oriented to facilitating and
assisting the efforts ofcommunities to improve their own conditions oflife.
We have so far been focusing on the introduction of human rights
considerations into the equation of development. The other side of the
integration of human development and human rights is, of course, the
introduction of development issues into the equation of human rights.
17 See, e.g., UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 'How do rights-based
approaches differ and what is the value added?', available at www.unhchr.ch/
development/approaches-07.html. See further P. Alston. 'Revitalising United Nations
Work on Human Rights and Development' 18 Me/bourne University LawReview(1991) 216.
18 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 2
(International technical assistance measures: art. 22), 2 February 1990, para. 7.
. . - . . . . ~ ...
DEVELOPMENT 99
The right to development
The recognition of development as a -human right predates the recent
embrace of rights-based approaches to development by quite some
time. The right to development emerged in connection with the efforts
of newly independent states in the 1960s and 1970S to establish fairer
economic and trade relations between the global North and the global
South.
19
In its current form the right was first recognised by the UN
Commission on Human Rights in 1977.
20
It is protected in the African
Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, opened for signature in 198r.
Article 22 of the Charter declares: '(1) All peoples shall have the right to
their economic, social and cultural development ... (2) States shall have
the duty, individually or collectively, to ensure the exercise of the right
to development'. The right to development is affirmed and elaborated
in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted by the
General Assembly in 1986.21 It is reaffirmed as 'a universal and inalien-
able right and an integral part of fundamental human rights' in the
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted at the World
Conference on Human Rights in 1993.
22
In 1998 the UN Commission
on Human Rights appointed Aljun Sengupta as independent expert on
the right to development. In a series of reports Sengupta has elaborated
a conception of the right to development as the 'right to a process' , and
has examined ways in which the implementation of that right may be
enhanced.
23
If the right to development emerged in connection with efforts
to establish fairer economic and trade relations, its subsequent history
19 See G. Abi-Saab, 'The Legal Formulation of a Right to Development' in
R. Dupuy (ed.), The Right to Development at the international Level (Alphen aan den Rijn:
Sijthoff and Noodhoff, 1981), 163.
20 UN Commission on Human Rights Res. 4 (XXXIII) of 21 February 1977. See
also, earlier, the UN Declaration on Social Progress and Development, UN General
Assembly Res. 2542 (XXIV), II December 1969 (elaborating on the human rights
implications of'social progress and development', but not recognising a 'right to develop-
ment' in the manner oflater instruments).
21 UN General Assembly Res. 41/128, 4 December 1986.
22 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, UN Doc. AlCONEI57123,
12 July 1993, Part I, para. 10.
23 For discussion of the independent expert's first four reports, see Franciscans
International (eds.), TI,e Right to Development (Geneva: Franciscans International, 2003)
(where the reports themselves are also reproduced) .
100 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
,-:..-:.:'-::! .
indicates that for some it (also) has another significance. Thus, the
has been championed by some governments from the global South
way ofjustifying repressive policies by reference to the goal of
ment. (To this extent it may have affinities with the arguments,
above, that have been advanced in conjunction with claims about c2'
bearing for human rights of Asian values.) Concurrently, the
development has been resisted by some governments from the
North, anxious to avoid constraints that might impede trade and
ment or cause them to lose control over development assistance.
Orford observes that both sets ofgovernments have found it
to adopt a narrow interpretation of the right, according to which thik
right to development is essentially a right ofstates to prioritise a
economic model ofdevelopment over human rights.
24
This supports thi.
effort to justifY repression, while at the same time making the right eas:
i
to discredit. Yet, as Orford also observes, the UN Declaration on tht-
Right to Development additionally, and perhaps more readily,
other, far more progressive interpretations.
Let us begin by considering the subject of the right. According to art-
icle 2(1) of the UN Declaration, the 'human person is the central subject
...
of development and should be the active participant and beneficiary of .
the right to development'. Under article 2(3), 'States have the right and
duty to formulate appropriate national development policies that aim at
the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population
and of all individuals'. And pursuant to article 22(1) of the African
Charter, quoted above, '[a]ll peoples shall have the right to their eco-'
nomic, social and cultural development'. While debates about the subject
of the right to development often proceed by privileging one or another
of these various formulations, read together they can be understood as
establishing a right that has both individual and collective dimensions.
The 'human person' is the central subject. 'All peoples' have the right, but
on the basis that what is in issue is the well-being of the' entire popula-
tion and of all individuals' within it. 'States' are entided to formulate
development policies for enhancing the well-being ofthe entire popula-
tion and all individuals, in the sense that others may not prevent or
obstruct this goal.
24 A. Orford, 'Globalization and the Right to Development' in P. Alston (ed.),
Peoples' Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001),127, 133.
DEVELOPMENT 101
What then of the entidement itself? In the UN Declaration three
" ~ p e c t s assume particular prominence. One, echoed also in the rights-
Gased approaches to development we considered earlier, concerns the
participation of those affected. Thus, the Declaration asserts that devel-
opment policies should be formulated 'on the basis of [the] active, free
md meaningful participation in development' of all individuals.
25
Highlighted in particular is the need for effective measures to ensure an
dctive role for women,26 upon whom improvements in social circum-
stances often disproportionately depend, yet who are all too frequendy
marginalised, or inadequately involved, in decision-making about devel-
opment. Once again, these provisions make clear that consultation about
policies, projects or programmes already decided upon does not suffice.
Participation must include the capacity to take part in setting develop-
ment priorities and directing development processes. A second aspect
relates to the distribution of social goods and opportunities. This is
obviously connected with the first aspect, inasmuch as marginalisation
in decision-making is conducive to disadvantageous outcomes. The
Declaration asserts that development policies should also be formulated
with a view to the 'fair distribution of the benefits resulting' from devel-
opmentY At the same time, it refers to the obligation to ensure 'equal-
ity of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education,
health services, food, housing, employment, and the fair distribution of
income' .28 These provisions lay a basis for claims about inequity in the
distribution of social goods and opportunities, and about inadequacy in
the provision ofbasic services and in the means ofa livelihood. Following
on from this, a third aspect of the right to development has to do with
the relationship between it and other human rights. In a number of its
articles, as well as in its preamble, the Declaration indicates that efforts to
promote the right to development must remain consistent with respect
for other human rights, and indeed should include efforts to promote
respect for the full range of human rights. Thus, for instance, article 6(3)
declares that 'States should take steps to eliminate obstacles to develop-
ment resulting from failure to observe civil and political rights, as well
as economic, social and cultural rights'. In contrast to the assumption,
mentioned earlier, that the right to development can justifY repressive
policies by reference to the goal of economic development, this may be
25 Art. 2(3). 26 Art. 8(1). 27 Art. 2(3). 28 Art. 8(1).
I02 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
taken to reflect a rights-based approach to development, according to
which development is inseparable from the goa] of enhancing respect
for the full range of human rights.
Finally, upon whom are imposed the obligations associated with this
entitlement? Under the African Charter, 'States shall have the duty, indi-
vidually or collectively, to ensure the exercise of the right to develop-
ment'.29 Likewise, under the UN Declaration 'States have the primary
responsibility for the creation of national and international conditions
favourable to the realization of the right to development'.30 More
specifically, 'States have the duty to take steps, individually and collec-
tively, to formulate development policies .. .' ,31 and 'to co-operate with
each other in ensuring development and eliminating obstacles to devel-
opment' .32 In this regard, the Declaration emphasises that, '[a]s a com-
plement to the efforts of developing countries, effective international
co-operation is essential in providing these countries with appropriate
means and facilities to foster their comprehensive development'.33 At
the same time, it is declared that '[a]ll human beings have a responsibil-
ity for development, individually and collectively .. .'.34 As in the case of
the subject of the right to development, debates about responsibility for
ensuring the right often proceed by privileging one or another of these
various formulations. In this way we are encouraged either to focus on
international accountability and absolve from responsibility the govern-
ment of the state concerned, or to focus on national accountability and
absolve from responsibility other governments, international institutions
and others. Once again, however, the idea that we must make such a
choice can be readily refuted. When read as a whole, the UN Declaration
can be understood to express a multidimensional approach to accounta-
bility, such that responsibility rests with the government of the state
concerned, but also other governments, international institutions and
indeed everyone. That responsibility, moreover, is not Inerely a negative
duty not to impede development, but also a positive duty to act in ways
that help to eliminate obstacles to development and create favourable
conditions for it. Anne Orford notes that in conditions of intensifYing
globalisation, the role of multinational corporations is particularly sig-
nificant. In the absence ofadequate forms of accountability with regard
29 Art. 22(2).
33 Art. 4(2).
JArt. 3(1).
34 Art. 2(2).
I,
DEVELOPMENT 103
to multinational corporations, the duties of international institutions,
especially international economic institutions, and of states as members
of those institutions, also assume a special salience. Analysing the work
of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World
Trade Organization, however, she shows that these duties have yet to be
registered fully, or even in some contexts at all. While the right to devel-
opment has a central place in the agenda of the United Nations, Orford's
assessment is that it has had little impact on the work of the institutions
mostly closely linked to the international economic system.
35
To some analysts this is not a cause for disquiet, but for relief.
Certainly, the emergence of the right to development has by no means
been universally welcomed, and from one perspective, it is an unhelpful,
even dangerous, departure, best pulled back. We have mentioned the
invocation ofthe right to development in connection with efforts to jus-
tifY repression. We have also alluded to the way it has been used to deflect
attention from the responsibility of the governments of poor countries
for improving conditions within their own countries, or alternatively to
deter concentration on the obligations of governments of richer states
with respect to development elsewhere. Another concern is that the
right to development risks submerging long established human rights
protections in a right ofwhich the basic features remain indistinct, or at
any rate contested. InYash Ghai's words, the 'fortunes of the disadvan-
taged are better served by the claims to specific rights like food, shelter,
and literacy than an amorphous portmanteau right .. :.36 This is espe-
cially the case given that it seems hard to imagine the right ever being
enforced through national courts. Viewed from this angle, the right to
development politicises issues which could otherwise be approached on
more objective, formal and legal tenns.
On the other hand, a further concern is that the right to development
precisely depoliticises issues which should rather be recognised as
inescapably political struggles over public projects, resource allocations
and social arrangements. Here the worry is that the right engages officials,
activists and scholars in endless debates about right-holders, duty-bearers,
35 A. Orford., 'Globalization and the Right to Development' in P. Alston (ed.) ,
Peoples' Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 127, passim.
36 Y. Ghai, T/f/hose Human Right to Development?, Commonwealth Secretariat Series of
:Jccasional Papers on the Right to Development (London: Commonwealth Secretariat,
=989),15
I' 104 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEXICON
enforcement mechanisms and other formal and procedural questions,
diverting attention from the policy choices being made. In this way, it
demobilises those who have reason to contest these choices. It also takes
up too much imaginative space, and thus debilitates our capacity for
envisioning and formulating alternative frameworks. Let us mention
one final concern. This is an anxiety that the right to development may
entrench a concept-development-which is itself a key part of the
problem. We highlighted earlier some of the challenges to which the
concept of development has given rise, as well as some of the reorien-
tations initiated to meet those challenges. The concern is that, even after
so many reorientations, little has really changed. An evolutionary model
continues to hold sway; deficiency endures as the defining characteristic
of ,developing' societies; and economic growth remains the overriding
concern, with distributive considerations coming well behind.
While there may be answers to some of these points, not all the
misgivings can be fully allayed. From this it does not follow, however, that
the right to development should be dismissed. For if the right to devel-
opment has important limitations, it also has the potential to make valuable
contributions. As in the case of rights-based approaches to development, it
strengthens in some respects the basis for advocacy and resistance, moving
claims from the domain of welfare and voluntary assistance to that of
entidement and obligation. In this regard, it also fosters a presumption
ofresponsibility, and prompts consideration ofthe detailed implications of
the responsibilities ofparticular actors in particular contexts. As a synthetic
right, the right to development helps to bring out the links between
different human rights and the need for an integrated or, as it is some-
times termed, 'holistic' approach to respect for human rights. As Atjun
Sengupta explains, the right to development is not 'merely the sum total'
of existing human rights. That is to say, it is not merely a call for 'the
realization of those rights individually, but [for] the realization of them
together in a manner that takes into account their effects on each other,
both at a particular time and over a period of time'.3
7
With its empha-
sis on participation, the right to development helps to ensure that con-
sideration of these effects in turn takes into account the diverse
perspectives of those affected. The right to development also highlights
37 Third report of the independent expert on the right to development, AJjun
Sengupta. UN Doc. E/CN.41200I/WG.I812, 2 January 2001, para. II.
DEVELOPMENT IOS
:he need for a holistic and structural approach to human rights abuse. By
directing our attention to economic and social issues, it helps us to see
is making abuse possible. Finally, the right to development encour-
..' 1ges us to attend to the interconnectedness of life in the contemporary
-"vorld, the ways in which social conditions in different places (within
"',......:,,,.,.. and across them) are linked in patterns of exploitation and
:':0-operation, interdependence and dependency. It thus heightens percep-
:ions ofthe global dimensions ofthe struggle to ensure respect for human
". :rights, enriching understanding not only of the problems confronted, but
zlso of the solidarities that might be mobilised for change.