The emergence of the right to development : an international regime analysis emergence of the right to development

«THE EMERGENCE OF THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT - AN INTERNATIONAL REGIME ANALYSIS» The thesis analyses the emergence of the right to development in view of the existing normative system of human rights standards. It applies the theoretical construct of international regimes, defined as "sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area of international relations", to the issue-area of human rights, that is, the international human rights regime. The introduction of the right to development into the human rights agenda in the late 1970s is viewed as an attempt to change the basic foundation of the regime, that is, a change in principles and norms. States are the main actors in this regime, and the study chose to use intentional explanations and tries to analyse state interests. In addition to power and interest, the regime theory also suggest an independent role for the regime itself. The regime institutions, such as the UN General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights, are evaluated, and the primary source for this analysis is the records from the meetings in these institutions. It is therefore an interpretive analysis, studying the arguments and the positioning of various states. The emergence of the right is first evaluated in its historical context. The findings suggest that the Third World countries motivated by the concern for a New International Economic Order, attempted to use the arena of human rights to claim their peoples' and states' right to development. This is partly due to their positive experiences with the human rights regime on areas like political self-determination and non-discrimination and the normative potential inherent in the concepts of human rights. When some academics in the 1970s launched the concept of solidarity rights, of which the right to development was supposed to belong, this idea provided a supplementary approach to achieve the NIEO-goals. The new majority of developing countries controlled the voting power in the regime institutions. The right to development was needed to secure the peoples in the poor countries their basic rights, in particular their socio-economic rights . Due to the concern with socio-economic rights and a growing understanding that human rights problems did not appear in a vacuum, there was sufficient interest also in the North-West for the idea of a right to development. The Secratary-General of the United Nations prepared a series of studies on the right to development, and the Assembly and Commission began to pass resolutions confirming the existence of the right. There was much scepticism in the West, both to the procedure used and to the substance of the claimed right. Western countries argued that the human rights regime was treatened and that established human rights standards might be undermined. The Eastern bloc was all the time supportive of the Southern claims. A closer look at the specific issues and questions within the debate, shows two sets of principal questions: First, what are human rights, and, how to realize them? A central discussion was whether collectivities could be holders of human rights. Another concerned the difference between civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights. The other set of questions related to development; what is development, and how to realize it? Central issues were the role of the state, the role of the international economic system, and the role of the individual human being in creating development. An ad hoc drafting committee was established to draft a Declaration on the Right to Development. After five years, this Working Group had not managed to achieve a consensus. The Declaration was still adopted in the General Assembly against the vote of USA and with eigth Western countries abstaining. The explanations to the positions of the different Western states can be found partly in conflicting ideological positions, and partly in a difference in the expectations of what the right to development would lead to; whether it would strengthen the regime or lead to incoherence. Were the motives of the South and the East sincere, or were they camoflagued excuses for not respecting human rights? When the Declaration was finally adopted as a resolution in the General Assembly, it had the necessary support from a majority of Western countries. This was possible, among other things, because states were not anymore held to be the bearers of human rights (except in some countries continuous radical views). The analysis concludes that the normative structure embedded in the human rights regime both enabled the right to development to enter that regime, and at the same time restrained the definition, content and implications of that right. The UN system had facilitated issue-linkages as well as generated new knowledge. The latter concerned the interrelations between different categories of human rights, the conception of development as well as the interrelations between human rights and development. The human being was now declared to be the subject of development, and development was defined as a process conducive of human rights, with emphasis of participation. Thus, learning was both a cause and an effect from the emergence of the right to development. However, the right to development is merely a declaratory development of the regime. A stronger consensus is needed to make the right become an effective international norm. The study also takes a brief look at the aftermath of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development, to see in what it indicated for the future development of this new right