PHA-Exchange> Food for thought for an agenda in the new year

[Aviva]

Human Rights Reader 33 (re-started after a long silence and a 2003 new
year's resolution).


Human Rights are very much on the agenda of development work:

"The sovereignty of States must no longer be used as a shield for gross
violations of Human Rights". (Kofi Anan, Nobel lecture, Dec 2001).

1. Betting on the invisible hand of the market and ignoring the needs and
rights of the socially excluded is just dangerous and morally unacceptable.

2. It is therefore that the macroeconomic policies insisted-on by the IMF do
not simply have a negative social impact; their design embodies a profoundly
unjust social content giving the financial rights of creditors priority over
Human Rights of the people; the IMF chooses to prioritize the interests of
the creditors.

3. Rights can be usefully seen as the codification of needs. Reformulating
needs as ethical and legal norms implies a duty on the part of those with
the  power to provide all the means necessary to make sure those needs are
met.

4. Without Political and Civil Rights, there is no guarantee that other
rights      --even when they are inscribed in laws and constitutions-- will
be made effective; the lack of citizens' power to make governments
accountable and responsible to them is perhaps the greatest obstacle to all
rights-based agendas.

5. But democratic elections (allegedly giving citizens off-and-on, periodic
power) do neither guarantee state responses to collective needs, nor the
participation of civil society in decision-making, nor, for that matter,
guarantee greater social and political accountability.

6. On the other hand, claims are sometimes wrongfully made that universal
rights are a form of Western hegemony; the caveat in this assertion is that
a right is a right only when it is universal; otherwise it is a privilege.

7. There is also the wrong belief that the Human Rights approach is
'political' while the humanitarian approach is not...and is therefore 'safe'
; others phrase the same groundless fear saying that applying the Human
Rights approach compromises one's 'neutrality'.

8. The reality is that any legal Human Rights system (including
humanitarianism) is indeed (and must be) related to political theory and
social values.

9. Nevertheless, let us not forget, International Human Rights Law only
recognizes the obligations and duties of States (!). To cover the entire web
of interrelated Human Rights violations, there is indeed a need to extend
the same obligations and duties to other subjects at sub-national level.

10. This, because Human Rights obligations are closely linked to a
multi-layered system of accountabilities. For a duty bearer to be
accountable, three conditions are needed:
-the person must accept the responsibility and obligation to uphold Human
  Rights ('should act');
-the person must have the authority to act ('may act'); and
-the person must control the resources needed to act ('can act').
Responsibility/authority/resources are necessary components of a capacity to
act. Often, lack of action is due to a lack of capacity rather than
negligence or ill-will. It, therefore, behooves us to identify capacity gaps
of all duty bearers! Where duty bearers are intentionally violating rights,
different types of  interventions will be required as lack of capacity is
not the problem.

Taken from: UNRISD News,  CARE's  ' Promoting Rights and Responsibilities'
Newsletter and SCN News (Jonsson, Levine and Young, The Right to Nutrition
in Conflict Situations).

Claudio Schuftan, now relocated in Ho Chi Minh City since Dec 22nd.
aviva at netnam.vn (no change in email)

__________
We have to begin tinking in human rights terms; we have to bring HR to a
level of everyday impertinent consciousness; collect and share these
segments.