By Otto Spijkers
I referred earlier to a speech by the Minister for Development Cooperation. The text of that speech was published today (it is available here). This is the passage I would like to refer to:
Respect for human rights, of all forms, in my view is the essence of development and a basis and consequence of the rule of law. International cooperation should be about rights and development. Or in many cases, the lack thereof! The right to security, for example, is at least as unfairly apportioned as the right to education. And the right to independent development, for men and even more so for women, is under daily threat in many parts of the world. Recognising and guaranteeing such rights – formally and substantively – is the essence of development, and therefore of development cooperation. Already in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, followed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 and the 1968 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These starting points, or even universal claims, are and should form our basis for policy and our politics. Putting the theory into practice, my Ministry adopted the ‘Rights Based Approach’. This aims to look at both the ‘rights-holders’ and the ‘duty-barers’. As a cross-cutting issue. In all our rather technical sectors – they are very important for people – such as water, health and education, it should be a logical but difficult principle to apply. The rights-holder has a right to clean drinking water. By consequence, duty-barers, in most cases the state, need to deliver clean drinking water.
I wanted to quote these lines to explain what the rights based approach to development entails exactly. It doesn’t get any more explicit than that. The entire speech was also recorded on video; I understand that it will be available very soon on the website of the Van Vollenhoven Institute. For an insightful commentary on the ‘human discourse’, see this Working Paper by Des Gasper, which will be presented at a workshop on the roles and relationships of the human discourses: human rights, human development, human security, chaired by Sir Richard Jolly. – Otto
Hello Anonymous,
You raise some interesting questions, to which I don’t have the answer. I think it is important to challenge the conventional views on development assistance, but in doing so I do not really consider myself an expert at all.
One question you raised, I can try to answer. That is: Is the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation in some sense a duty bearer towards the people he proposes to help? I think we are duty bearers, the Netherlands, as state and as a collection of individual people. So in that sense he is a duty bearer too. And the same is true for those on whose rights we now focus; they also have duties. I agree that this shift, from charity to simply carrying out your legal duties, follows from the rights-based approach. And I believe the Netherlands fulfils its duty, while many other nations, including many in the South, do not.
By the way: how is your headache?
Hi Otto
Your post opened the door to quite a few thoughts about development. Following the logic of the minister, everything would be ok (or at least better), if the rights holders of the world are able to look to the duty bearers to provide a more effective framework in which their rights are realized.
Clear! But should we think of the development problem primarily as violations of rights by duty bearers? I guess, that would not provide much incentive for people to become duty bearers. And anyway just who are these duty bearers (beyond our list of usual suspects that call representatives of the state)? Not to be too impolite, but do the array of western governments and NGO’s who argue about development have any ?duty” or ?accountability” for the results that they achieve or fail to achieve? For example, is the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation in some sense a duty bearer towards the people he proposes to help? And if he has a duty, what is it? Would this include a duty to provide assistance and/or to cooperate with other assistance providers to create a common development framework (Heehee that is a good joke isn’t it)? If the minister breaches his duty, what then? Is compensation in order? Or is he immune? And if he is immune, why not all duty bearers? (We know the answer — the rights “regime” cannot accept this because it would then have no “teeth” and hence risk irrelevance — see our earlier exchange — hence we accept instead a selective enforcement regime of fundamental rights related “duties”, the favorite being “genocide by non-whites will be punished sometimes” and please never say the words Chechnya or Darfour).
By the way, does this also mean that the rights holders have no duties? And if their rights may be somehow conditional, just what are the conditions that ?we” would accept before their rights arise? For example, is indentured servitude as evil as slavery? Are the Dubai police then the modern equivalent of the old time slavers because of the way they herd foreign workers around at the point of a gun? Shall we consider an enforcement regime here?
Maybe I am dense, but it seems to me that the fine rhetoric of the minister presumes that at the core of the development problem there are ?bad people” or ?insensitive people” who need reminding that the other ?nice” people should be treated with more respect and dignity. (Listening Al Qaeda?) No doubt, the world has a few bad and insensitive people in it (in the west too?). But is this really the essence of the development problem? A long time ago, did the ?developers” in Europe and the US see their work as the promotion of human rights? Is DeSoto right that the real problem is that people living in rich countries now have no idea how their countries became rich because it happened so long ago? We simply were not around back then. But we still insist that we have the answers. Should we consider instead that perhaps we have watched Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamonds too many times, and now believe that development across the board is simply a matter of good versus evil? Poverty happens because nice families are the innocent victims of evil money grubbers and killers (yes, apparently those two groups apparently belong together). That would make things so much simpler.
I stop here as I am ?developing” a bit of a headache. We (in the west) play a game called ?development” in which we see ourselves as already ?developed” (thus placing ourselves above the fray). We play with groups of people whom we would seek to ?develop” (an inherently inferior position despite the grand rights rhetoric we offer). We play but cannot lose. But could the poor actually win by playing by our rules? Is assistance policy more important than trade policy? Could we congratulate ourselves for implementing a successful development strategy if it leads only to wealth generation for them (and not making them morally better as people)? Put another way, must we make people morally better in order for their societies to be more “developed”. If so, then perhaps we in the west need some development too. But is that within the minister’s portfolio?
Hi Otto,
Perhaps it would clarify things for me if you could emphasize the differences between a rights based approach to development and whatever system it supplanted.
To put it concretely, what is the difference between the Dutch government building a well in a poor country because the Dutch government and people feel bad about people lacking clean drinking water, and because they have a duty to do so because the poor people have a right? As far as I can see, the difference is one of moving from a development discourse of “empathy” and voluntary alleviation of suffering “because it makes us feel bad” to one of “universal rights” and obligations to comply with them. But practically speaking, who enforces these obligations? You are not saying exactly the same thing as Bill Easterly and Paul Wolfowitz, who are emphasizing “accountability”, which is not exactly the same thing as duty?