This article explores the value of the right to development declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 1986 in the context of challenges of underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa. Declared over 30 years ago, the right to development remains a paper tiger because of its legal unenforceability. Difficulties associated with enforceability are exacerbated by the failure of the Declaration's sponsors to clearly identify the duty bearers relative to the right. The article argues that the juridical status of the right ignores the mutuality between right and duty in human rights discourse and deceives developing states into believing or expecting that developed states would provide the means and resources to develop developing states. It further argues that such disconnect between right and duty is detrimental to attempts at enforcement, especially where the parties involved are sovereign states that act at the international plane principally by consent or consensus. The detachment of the legally enforceable duty from the right weakens the force of international law and, regrettably, validates the Austinian view on international law as international positive morality. Such a scenario not only has undermined the capacity of developing states to take the destiny of their development into their own hands and look within for economic salvation, but also triggered a situation where public officials in these states engage in maladministration and complacent plunder of the common wealth of their countries. Therefore, the current architecture of the right to development needs to be reconstructed so that some uncertain parts of the obligation therein can be weeded out in order to allow for the enforceability of the right. This measure is expected to infuse some sanity into the human rights discourse and more responsible conduct in developing states.

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This article examines the problem associated with the reluctance of public officials of states victimised by grand corruption (victim states) to diligently pursue the recovery of plundered national assets located abroad. Traditionally, only the victim state can initiate processes for assets recovery. However, it cannot do so due to the complicity of its public officials in the commission of the underlying predicate and money laundering offences. Consequently, the victim state is deprived of the fair opportunity to recover assets derived from such offences and, ipso facto, such deprivation worsens the inability of the victim state to realise the second-generation rights of its citizens. Relying on the jurisprudence of international human rights, the article argues for the establishment of an alternative assets recovery mechanism. Specifically, it advocates the unilateral participation of states other than victim states (and other entities) in recovering those assets on behalf of the victim state despite the discordance of its officials.