AFRO-NETS> Food from a Commissioner's thoughts

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Food from a Commissioner's thoughts
-----------------------------------

DEVELOPMENT AND RIGHTS: THE UNDENIABLE NEXUS.

For this issue of the reader, I find it fitting to excerpt and adapt 
from Mary Robinson's (High Commissioner of HRs) statement to the Co-
penhagen Plus Five meeting in Geneva in June 2000.

Without the rights rhetoric (and praxis),
I am afraid we will end up
with a total and uncaring market system
that will not solve our problems.
                                 Judge Albie Sachs, South Africa

Just a few years ago, the language of Human Rights was unwelcome in 
the work of development. Human Rights were regarded as 'political'. 
On those rare occasions when Human Rights were raised, it was often 
in the context of conditionalities set by donors.

Today, the situation is different. Most official and non-governmental 
aid organizations have now committed themselves to the integration of 
Human Rights into their work; at least in general. As was long over-
due, a new dialogue is taking place, more and more using law-based 
approaches to Human Rights, and the same have been integrated into 
the latest reforms of the UN system.

The path to human dignity runs not through imposed technocratic solu-
tions, imported foreign models, or presumed trade-offs between devel-
opment and rights. Health, education, housing, fair justice and free 
political participation are not matters for charity --but rather mat-
ters of right. This is what is meant by the 'rights-based approach': 
a participatory, empowering, accountable, and non-discriminatory de-
velopment paradigm based on the full set of universal, inalienable 
Human Rights and freedoms.

Poverty eradication without empowerment is unsustainable. Social in-
tegration without minority rights is unimaginable. Gender equality 
without women's rights is illusory. Full employment without workers' 
rights may be no more than a promise of sweat shops, exploitation and 
slavery. The logic of Human Rights in development is inescapable.

As said, rights-based approaches are normatively based on interna-
tional Human Rights standards and emphasize accountability, equality, 
empowerment and participation. The question is: How closely does the 
rhetoric match the reality? Therefore, the focus of the next five 
years must be on accountability, because duty bearers delivering on 
commitments is crucial to the advancement of Human Rights. All part-
ners of development must accept higher levels of accountability!

Human Rights-accountable aid is the respective responsibility of do-
nors. Human Rights-accountable business practices will have to come 
to mean fair trade, decent jobs, protected consumers and clean envi-
ronments.

But the will to protect Human Rights must be accompanied by the means 
to do so. Because there are crucial resource implications, interna-
tional cooperation is a sine-qua-non, including higher levels of aid 
with 'rights-friendly' priorities, deeper debt relief, and protection 
of poor countries from the negative impacts of structural adjustment 
and globalization.

Recognizing women's rights as Human Rights -- in law, policy and 
practice -- is also crucial.

But perhaps no social phenomenon is as comprehensive in its assault 
on Human Rights and human dignity as is poverty. Poverty erodes or 
nullifies economic and social rights (health, housing, food, safe wa-
ter and education) and civil and political rights (fair trial, po-
litical participation and security). The poor are acutely aware of 
the indivisibility of these rights! But the same are elusive to them.

 From a Human Rights perspective, poverty is a condition characterized 
by the sustained deprivation of choices and the power necessary for 
the enjoyment of fundamental rights. The social exclusion, humilia-
tion, abuse, rejection and harassment the poor are subjected to -- 
and their lack of power in regard to insensitive local officials, 
corrupt institutions and inaccessible development decision-makers -- 
all point to the need to create the new mechanisms necessary to en-
sure that the voices of the poor are heard and given authority in de-
velopment.

The rights-based approach does provide a better response to the con-
tinuing challenges of poverty - particularly those not reflected in 
current statistical indicators. This, because the rights-based ap-
proach brings with it a more rational development framework, more 
complete structural analyses, enhanced accountability, increased 
transparency, higher levels of empowerment, ownership and active par-
ticipation, safeguards against harm, and -- most importantly -- a 
more authoritative basis for advocacy.

Claudio Schuftan
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

PS: In relation to the 'On Statistics' piece I e-mailed earlier in 
the week, Joe Hannah wrote: On the same subject, here is a quote 
whose author I also do not know: 
"If you torture multi-variate data sufficiently, they will confess!"

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