The Declaration on the Right to Development Revisited

AuthorKoen De Feyter
DOI10.1177/2277401720130102
Published date01 June 2013
Date01 June 2013
THE DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT TO
DEVELOPMENT REVISITED
Koen De Feyter*
This paper takes a fresh look at the Declaration on the Right to
Development adopted more than twenty five years ago at the
United Nations. The Declaration remains valid, but a number of its
provisions require evolutionary interpretation, taking into account
international and regional legal developments subsequent to the
adoption of the text, and changes in the global economic and social
environment. The paper engages with ideas put forward by Arjun
Sengupta, the former UN Independent Expert on the Right to
Development, and one of the strongest advocates of the right to
development in the Global South.
I. INTRODUCTION: ARJUN SENGUPTA AND THE DECLARATION ON
THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT ................................................................. 15
II. THE DEFINITION OF PEOPLES ................................................................. 20
III. THE ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSION OF DEVELOPMENT ........................ 24
IV. THE NOT SO NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER ....................... 25
V. GENDER EQUALITY AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN .................. 28
VI. ISSUES ON THE HORIZON ......................................................................... 29
I. INTRODUCTION: ARJUN SENGUPTA AND THE
DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT
Arjun Sengupta served as Independent Expert on the Right to
Development to the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Right to
Development at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva from 1998
to 2004. He remained a major voice in the global debate on the right to
development until his untimely death in 2010.
*Chair of International Law, Law and Development Research Group, Faculty of Law,
University of Antwerp (Belgium).
Arjun Sengupta came to the United Nations Human Rights system after
having served as an Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund.
It was not an obvious move: the global financial and trade institutions are
often criticized for their denial of any legal responsibility under human
rights law and their complicity in human rights violations. On the other
hand, the push from the Global South for the recognition of the right to
development as a human right was based on the argument that greater
justice in the global political economy was required to assist developing
countries in the realization of human rights. Arjun Sengupta's professional
track record prepared him for a task that required facilitating a dialogue
between development economists and human rights lawyers. Here is what
he wrote in 2002:
A country, it may be noted, can develop by many different
processes ….There may be an impressive growth of the export
industries with increased access to global markets, but without
integrating the economic hinterland into the process of growth and
not breaking the structure of a dual economy. All these may be
regarded as development in the conventional sense. However, they
will not be regarded as a process of development, as objects of
claim as human rights, so long as these are not accompanied by a
process where equal opportunities were provided. Economic
growth, attended by increased inequalities or disparities and rising
concentrations of wealth and economic power, and without any
improvement in indicators of social development, education,
health, gender balance and environmental protection respecting
the human rights standards and, what is most important, if such
growth is associated with any violation of civil and political rights,
1
it cannot fulfill the human right to development.
2
According to the Declaration on the Right to Development, the right to
development entitles every human person and all peoples to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy development, in which all human rights can be fully
3
realized.
1 Arjun Sengupta, On the Theory and Practice of the Right to Development, 24 HUM. RTS. Q.
848 (2002).
2 G.A. Res. 41/128, U.N. Doc. A/RES/41/128 (Dec.4, 1986) [hereinafter Declaration]. The
resolution was adopted by a majority of 146 to 1 (United States) with 8 abstentions.
3 Declaration, art. 1(1).
16 Journal of National Law University, Delhi [Vol. 1

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