PHA-Exchange> Food for a thought that is here to stay

[Claudio]

Human Rights Reader 93 

 

The Rise of Rights

 

1. The human rights-based approach (RBA) represents a historical evolution from clientelism to citizenship. It is still often contested by many development agencies; at best, their statements on the RBA tend to reflect 'a compromise' on the issue. [The World Bank, for example, is 'cautious' about human rights (HR) in its official remarks; many bilateral donors are interested, but promote fairly watered-down definitions of HR --mostly relating them to civil and political rights only]. But, regardless of this attitude, the RBA is here to stay and to stay as a crucial link in our current attempts to eradicate poverty --any efforts to 'sanitize' its underlying political processes notwithstanding.  

 

2. Deciding which rights are most important has also become a political debate. We still stand firm on the principle that human (people's) rights are indivisible. Nevertheless, we can agree that the right to participation can be seen as the entry point to realizing all other rights: it is the-right-to-claim-other-rights. For this, excuse the obvious, participation has to be  understood as a right, and not as an instrument for greater aid effectiveness. This alone means switching from a technical to a political understanding of development, one that facilitates-the-inclusion-of-the-voices-of-the-marginalized who currently face barriers that prevent them from claiming their rights: The rationale of poverty reduction no longer derives from the poor having needs, but from them having rights!

 

3. The RBA is all about struggling for greater global distributive justice --including claims to aid, to debt relief and to fair terms of trade. It does not talk of (voiceless) beneficiaries, but of (partner) citizens, i.e., someone with rights rather than someone receiving welfare. Centering demands on people's rights means that our work will often entail extracting concessions from the more powerful duty-bearers who run the government and or otherwise control the needed resources. So one of the major challenges for poor people is to use the legal system to promote justice --making the laws work for them rather than for the elites. In this sense, rights are shaped by the actual struggle of people, i.e., through them acquiring and using a new understanding of what they are justly entitled to. That is why rights sound threatening to governments and/or elites; they are caught off-guard in responding to these new demands and may react in politically unpredictable ways. That is why agencies engaging with their partners in using a RBA must act responsibly and use the right tactics when supporting the powerless to take action;  this, since they risk starting a struggle they are not sure to win. 

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

claudio at hcmc.netnma.vn 

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Mostly taken from IDS Policy Briefing Issue 17, May 2003.

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