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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Human Rights Reader 222</font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black">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.</span></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"> </span></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Injustice is a social disease that needs to be combated with the force of an epidemic.</font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black">We have no other world except this one; it is difficult to imagine improving it without changing it. </span><font size="3"><span style="COLOR: black">(CETIM)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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 <u>discussion these days, these modalities should simply be sidelined.*</u></font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="COLOR: black">*: 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].</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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). </font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">4. We <u>can and will</u> hold them to account on many grounds. Among them: </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must recognize that they have binding international HR responsibilities of international assistance and cooperation. </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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!)</font></span></b></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must make the realization of HR a key objective of their development cooperation. </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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).</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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. </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must guarantee participation of the affected populations.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must, as a priority, support the HR of so-far excluded or discriminated groups.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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).</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must promote and assure non-discrimination, and must not attach conditions that undermine a developing country’s ability to guarantee HR.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must disaggregate the data they collect in HR-sensitive ways. </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol"><span>·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Donors must provide HR learning opportunities to their staff, to their partners and to their beneficiaries.</font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black">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 <b>the donor and government partners are bearers of obligations.</b> </span><font size="3"><span style="COLOR: black">(O. de Schutter)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">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<span> </span>then must take the necessary measures to carry out the strategy. </font></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black">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). </span><font size="3"><span style="COLOR: black">(O. de Schutter)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black">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. </span><font size="3"><span style="COLOR: black">(CETIM)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black"></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black"><font face="Times New Roman">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black"><a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#0000ff">cschuftan@phmovement.org</font></a><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
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<div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Mostly adapted from J. Bueno de Mezquita and P. Hunt</font></span></div>
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