Leave no one behind – the right to development

Thirty years on from the adoption of the landmark UN Declaration on the Right to Development, much remains to be done to enhance its effectiveness in building an inclusive global society.

by Rose Delaney

ROME: Human Rights Day on 10 December offers a moment to pause and look back at the roots of the global development process as a platform for stepping forward.

Thirty years ago, the international community made a commitment to eliminate all obstacles to equality and inclusivity. On 4 December 1986, the United Nations General Assembly officially adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development, a landmark text which describes development as an “inalienable human right”.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has encouraged all stakeholders to “approach the 30th anniversary of the Declaration with a sense of urgency.”

“The 30th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development must remind us that marginalized people – including migrants, indigenous peoples, and other minorities, as well as persons with disabilities – have a right to development, and that the true purpose of any economic endeavour is to improve the well-being of people.”

The groundbreaking 1986 declaration called for the establishment of inclusive global societies wherein the elimination of all forms of discrimination would be implemented to ensure sustainability.

Developing countries in the Global South perceived to be “lagging behind” would be restored through the “international cooperation” advocated by the text.

The declaration stressed the importance of active and meaningful participation in the development process, even by those traditionally silenced and stigmatized by society. The marginalized poor were encouraged to speak out in the name of their rights.

The emphasis on inclusivity highlighted the importance of non-discrimination and equal opportunity in the development process.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes, in its consensus, the right to development. The main objectives of the 1986 declaration are also reflected in both Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 for the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies, and SDG 17 which calls for the strengthening of global partnerships.

Shortcomings

Undoubtedly, three decades after the 1986 declaration was adopted, there are several significant achievements to reflect on, most notably the reduction of more than half of the population of people living in extreme poverty and in conditions of undernourishment in developing regions. In addition, the adoption of the declaration also resulted in improved access to clean drinking water and a much-needed increase in official development assistance.

However, despite significant progress, poverty and inequality persist.

According to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, world wealth remains unevenly distributed. Over 700 million people still live on the equivalent of less than $2 per day.

The limited access to healthcare, higher education and employment suffered by vulnerable segments of society runs the risk of pushing 100 million more into poverty by 2030, according to the World Bank.

Increased inequality and injustice in the developing world indicate the shortcomings of the 1986 declaration. An ongoing debate circles around its ineffectiveness, with many arguing that there is a lack of clear, coherent guidelines and thus far, it cannot be recognized as a legally binding instrument.

Differing interpretations of the declaration have also resulted in the absence of clear-cut solutions to critical development problems.

While the UN Development Programme claims that any action, in order to be developmental, must be human rights-based, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action in addition to the UN 2030 Agenda state that the right to development calls not only for enforcing action at the domestic level, but also for enabling action at the international level.

Both states and individuals share an equal responsibility to contribute to the creation and maintenance of a peaceful and inclusive global society.

Although the 1986 declaration was at first celebrated and welcomed by the international community, in recent years it has received less support from developing countries. Rising inequality, limited economic opportunity and lack of access to basic services have led to lost faith in its true effectiveness.

Recently, a promising step forward was made for the development agenda, especially to tackle the past “ineffectiveness” of the right to development, when Resolution 33/L.29 was adopted at the UN Human Rights Council’s 33rd session this September.

The resolution stressed the need to operationalize the right to development as a priority and called for the elaboration of a legally binding international instrument on the right to development in addition to the formation of a Special Rapporteur mandate devoted to the issue.

The Council’s resolution was welcomed by countries in the Global South but met with extreme reluctance by developed countries, whose delegates claimed the resolution unnecessarily duplicated the work of other mechanisms already put in place.

On 5 December, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue and the Permanent Mission of the Government of Azerbaijan hosted a panel discussion on the rising debates surrounding the right to development in 2016.

The core objective was to emphasize the importance of granting a voice to the voiceless and the necessity of global solidarity as a means of eradicating under-development.

The approach undertaken by the Geneva Centre and the government of Azerbaijan places civil society at the heart of the development process as defined 30 years ago in the 1986 declaration.

The power of interconnected global communities knows no bounds, especially to build bridges between the developed and developing world, and ultimately, eliminate persistent North-South divides.

Ambassador Idriss Jazairy, Executive Director of the Geneva Centre and moderator of the panel discussion, emphasized the importance of global solidarity in an age of ongoing violence, corruption, economic crises and, most notably, mass displacement the world over.

In his opening remarks, Jazairy discussed the revitalization of a peaceful international community and called for the inclusion of the 1986 declaration in the International Bill of Human Rights.

“Development is a human and a peoples’ right. The individual is entitled to have the means to thrive professionally, and peoples have the right to break the chains of subordination to an unjust global order,” he said. (IPS)                    p