Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective

Abstract

Human rights and development continue to reflect a separate evolution. This article explores challenges which characterize the relationship between human rights and development from a legal perspective suggesting reasons why the tensions and disconnects endure. It makes an obvious, but nevertheless underappreciated point: human rights are the subject of binding international legal obligations and their relevance to development can be understood in light of this. The first part of this article addresses the challenges of integrating human rights in development and the divergences of discourse and policy frameworks. The consequences of these divergences are examined, including a lack of prominence for legal duties for human rights in development, the absence of a normative baseline against which to check development processes and outcomes, an overall lack of policy coherence and a potential undermining of human rights accountability. The article concludes by highlighting opportunities extant in the international human rights law framework. The legal challenges and opportunities are viewed as interconnected: obstacles confronted in integrating human rights in development may be to be rooted in a neglect of the normative and legal dimensions of human rights, which in turn point to opportunities for greater convergence and coherence around international legal frameworks.

Effects of Chinese Development Aid on International Human Rights: Analysis of UN Votes (2001-2013)

“…Human rights resolutions are an overlooked, but real policy area of consequence. One study, the "Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective" (McInerney-Lankford, 2009), established that "human rights are not voluntary or just rhetorical, they are the subject of legally binding commitments". This implies that voting "yes" on human rights resolutions in the UN General Assembly will make it more likely for those rights to be treated as legitimate international law by the international community.…”

Direito humano à alimentação: marco conceitual e legal para a presença do setor público brasileiro no abastecimento de frutas, legumes e verduras

“…Por outro lado, não foi determinada alocação de recursos orçamentários para se manter um sistema nacional de SAN com base na realização progressiva do DHA; não se estabeleceram medidas voltadas para assegurar a progressividade da tributação, o que constituiria uma medida relevante em termos de geração de recursos para financiar medidas mais incisivas para a realização desse direito [23] . Nessa perspectiva, Mcinerney-Lankford [24] ressalta que dificilmente os direitos humanos são tratados além do discurso político pelos governos, ou seja, não são articulados com políticas de desenvolvimento, instrumentos para sua realização.…”

A Clash of Paradigms in the Water Sector? Tensions and Synergies Between Integrated Water Resources Management and the Human Rights-Based Approach to Development

“…mately corresponds to a trend in the literature that recommends a renewed focus on the positive legal manifestations of international human rights. 161 It also underlines the importance of transposing these rights into national legal frameworks further to reforms motivated by human rights advocacy in order to offer ex post discursive recourses-recourses that provide remedies to ex ante indeterminate situations-against systemic failures in water resources management frameworks.…”