Human Rights And Third World Development

The intertwining of development and human rights is the subject of the twelve essays collected by the editors. The individual authors extensively examine the commonly held belief that economic development cannot take place in Third World countries without the short term sacrifice of political liberty and demonstrate that there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Following a theoretical stage-setting that concentrates on the severe power limitations and the dependency of weak Third World states, case studies focus on such issues as state terrorism, food, the right to modernize, refugees, and support of apartheid in Latin America, the People's Republic of China, the Middle East, and Africa. Several essays concern the implementation of human rights and the role of multinational corporations and international nongovernmental organizations in protecting them. The final essay considers the international framework of government, law, and organization as a means for implementing human rights development in the Third World.

'Structural adjustment' has been a central part of the development strategy for the 'third world'. Loans made by the World Bank and the IMF have been conditional on developing countries pursuing rapid economic liberalization programmes as it was believed this would strengthen their economies in the long run. M. Rodwan Abouharb and David Cingranelli argue that, conversely, structural adjustment agreements usually cause increased hardship for the poor, greater civil conflict, and more repression of human rights, therefore resulting in a lower rate of economic development. Greater exposure to structural adjustment has increased the prevalence of anti-government protests, riots and rebellion. It has led to less respect for economic and social rights, physical integrity rights, and worker rights, but more respect for democratic rights. Based on these findings, the authors recommend a human rights-based approach to economic development.

The intertwining of development and human rights is the subject of the twelve essays collected by the editors. The individual authors extensively examine the commonly held belief that economic development cannot take place in Third World countries without the short term sacrifice of political liberty and demonstrate that there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Following a theoretical stage-setting that concentrates on the severe power limitations and the dependency of weak Third World states, case studies focus on such issues as state terrorism, food, the right to modernize, refugees, and support of apartheid in Latin America, the People's Republic of China, the Middle East, and Africa. Several essays concern the implementation of human rights and the role of multinational corporations and international nongovernmental organizations in protecting them. The final essay considers the international framework of government, law, and organization as a means for implementing human rights development in the Third World.

Examines the prospects for democratization in the developing world. The book draws upon ideas of widespread socioeconomic well-being, human rights, the distribution of resources and population, and the environment.

The United Nations is commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, which proclaimed the right to be: 'an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realized'. The UN now aims to mainstream the right into its policies and operational activities, and is reviewing prospects for an internationally-binding legal instrument. The evolution of the right to development, however, has been dominated by debates about its conceptual validity and practical ramifications. It has been hailed as the cornerstone of the entire human rights system and criticized as a distracting ideological initiative. Questions also persist about the role of the right in reforming the international economic order. This book examines the legal and moral foundations of the right to development, addressing the major issues. It then considers the right to development in the global economy, noting the challenges of globalization and identifying key principles such as differential treatment of developing countries, participation and accountability. It relates the right to broad objectives such as the Millennium Development Goals, the human rights-based approach to development, and environmental sustainability. Implications for international economic law and policy in the areas of trade, development finance and corporate responsibility are assessed. The conclusion looks to the legal and ethical contributions - and limitations - of the right to development in this new context. With an academic and professional background in international law, human rights and moral theology, the author brings a unique interdisciplinary focus to this timely project.

2.3 BITs v CERDS.

Populations for the sins of their rulers.

The eleventh in the series of yearbooks on Human Rights in Developing Countries, this volume marks a departure from previous editions and a new beginning. The Yearbook will now bear the title of Human Rights in Development, to reflect the fact that it will explore the role of human rights as an integral part of the development process. The new title is also an indication of the fact that the scope of the Yearbook has widened to include human rights topics and issues in the more developed parts of the world as well as in the developing countries covered hitherto. Moreover, human rights are themselves in development and the new Yearbook plans to keep track of standard-setting in the human rights field. Finally, the new title reflects the Yearbook's aim of engaging in more international and comparative studies on the one hand and in more focused local issues on the other. With the rapid spread of new information technology and improved local monitoring capacity in developing countries, there may be less of a need for the type of nation-level country studies the Yearbook performed in the past. Two themes cut across the series of articles contained in the current edition. One, human rights promotion, is explored in various ways; one article looks at the establishment of national human rights institutions as instruments of promotion; another analyses development interventions in terms of their impact on local populations, drawing on UN and World Bank experience; yet another argues the case for using aid in human rights promotion, exemplified by Dutch aid to Guatemala; a fourth investigates the policies of the EU and ASEAN in seeking to improve the human rights situation in Burma; and finally one article looks at the work of the ILO in standard-setting and implementation in the field of child labour. The other theme, local conflict, is addressed in two articles, one looking at local communities in Latin America caught between local customs and ideologically charged civil wars and the other investigating the tensions between centralized rule and local autonomy in Kenya, recently erupting into ethnic violence. The Human Rights in Development Yearbook is a joint project of the Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen; the Danish Centre for Human Rights, Copenhagen; the Icelandic Human Rights Centre, Reykjavik; the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna; the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht; the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Oslo; and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund.