PHM-Exch> Food for a new tactical thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 222



*EXPERIENCE HAS SHOWN THAT, IN DEVELOPMENT WORK, WE NOW HAVE TO CHANGE OUR
TACTICS: WE WILL NO LONGER ASK FOR POLITICAL WILL OR COMMITMENT, BUT
INSTEAD, WILL PUSH GOVERNMENTS ON THEIR LEGAL OBLIGATION.*



Injustice is a social disease that needs to be combated with the force of an
epidemic.



We have no other world except this one; it is difficult to imagine improving
it without changing it. (CETIM)



1. The need to push duty bearers on their legal obligations is neither new
nor only true for national leaders; efforts are being made for this to also
become standard practice for donors.



2. Why the latter? Because we firmly believe that, if human rights (HR) are
not being taken into account by the several new aid modalities under
*discussion
these days, these modalities should simply be sidelined.**

*: Caveat: At present, economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) do not
enjoy robust protective mechanisms under international law. [But this is
widely recognized as a travesty of the spirit and the letter of the
respective Covenant].



3. The above caveat notwithstanding, where donors are not supporting HR or
are undertaking policies or programs that are harmful in this respect, it
behooves them to take the measures to redress this situation (or for us to
force them to).



4. We *can and will* hold them to account on many grounds. Among them:

·      Donors must recognize that they have binding international HR
responsibilities of international assistance and cooperation.

·      *Donors must proactively engage with the overseas recipients of their
aid to encourage them to respect, protect and fulfill HR (…pushing
governments on their legal obligations!)*

·      Donors must make the realization of HR a key objective of their
development cooperation.

·      Donors that have ratified international HR treaties (the latter with
the exception mainly of the US) have to align their current aid with the
HR-based Framework.

·      Donors must also respect, protect and fulfill HR: in international
development conferences they participate in; in the executive boards of the
WB, the IMF and the WTO they are members-of, as well as in their agreements
with NGO and government partners (e.g., in free trade agreements).

·      Donors must be responsive to the needs of the different groups they
want to support and must be aware of how decisions are made and priorities
set, including whether genuine grassroots participatory processes have been
adopted.

·      Donors must guarantee participation of the affected populations.

·      Donors must, as a priority, support the HR of so-far excluded or
discriminated groups.

·      Donors are not only accountable to their own voters, but also to
claim holders in developing countries affected by their development
cooperation. (Here is where the power-balance-considerations blocking fair
and equitable solutions must kick-in).

·      Donors must promote and assure non-discrimination, and must not
attach conditions that undermine a developing country’s ability to guarantee
HR.

·      Donors must disaggregate the data they collect in HR-sensitive ways.

·      Donors must provide HR learning opportunities to their staff, to
their partners and to their beneficiaries.



5. In all the above, we note that the HR Framework actually transforms the
bilateral relation between donor and partner into a triangular relation at
the center of which the direct recipients of aid projects play an active
role as claim holders while *the donor and government partners are bearers
of obligations.* (O. de Schutter)



6. Coming back to legal obligations, as we have said many times before in
this Reader, together with civil society, governments must design a national
strategy for the progressive realization of HR and  then must take the
necessary measures to carry out the strategy.



7. What we here add is that such strategies cannot be detached from what is
happening in the outside world. For instance, the realization of the human
right to health and the human right to nutrition can be effective only if
there is a decrease in the dependence on (unfair) international trade in
goods and services (GATS). (O. de Schutter)



8. So, it is only by aligning our own tactics with those coming from current
or would-be claim holders that lasting changes will come… And, let’s
celebrate: The groups fighting for such changes are indeed many more and
much more active these days. (CETIM)



Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

cschuftan at phmovement.org

_________________________________
Mostly adapted from J. Bueno de Mezquita and P. Hunt
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