THE NEW UN HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACH - EFFECT ON THE STRUGGLE OF THE POOR?
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WHAT DOES THE NEW UN HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACH BRING TO THE STRUGGLE OF THE
POOR?
[Part 1]
We live in a new age of rights
1. Why does our commitment to a Human Rights approach in health, nutri-
tion and development work overall need to change? I would argue it is a
fundamental reaction to the additive negative impacts of Globalization
because Globalization is creating and is accelerating poverty, dispar-
ity, exclusion, unemployment, marginalization, alienation, environ-
mental degradation, exploitation, corruption, violence and conflict.
2. In short, people who are being marginalized by Globalization today
are really being pushed to the limit and they do need action. In real
terms, beneficiaries of top-down social services (mostly the poor) have
no active claim to ensure their needs will be met. So the Human Rights
approach comes to introduce the missing element of de-facto account-
ability; and this is its added value in development work. (1, 2)
3. Because the rights-based approach takes the entitlements of those
being marginalized as its starting point, a preliminary consensus needs
to be reached that development, to be sustainable, must be based on eq-
uity. (3, 4)
4. The rights-based approach does strive for equity and sustainability;
it focuses on the basic and structural (macroeconomic) causes of pov-
erty, ill-health and malnutrition; it further highlights the strategic
importance the formation of social capital plays in the development
process. (5)
5. Historically, there has been much circularity in the discussion of
Human Rights. Now, more concrete actions need to be identified. There
is still a segment of the Human Rights community that thinks that one
can settle world order issues while the power issues are still against
the majority of the marginalized. But, as just said, this is almost a
contradiction. Worldwide development will simply not take place through
the benevolence of the Global Free Market and of those who, through
their power, control it. (3)
6. During the process of relentless Capitalist accumulation, serious
social cleavages have eventually occurred. One would think these did
sober us. But we are now living in yet another utopia, one that extols
the ultimate benefit of Globalization. This utopia is made of a simi-
lar, but dangerous mythical belief that ultimately the free market will
make everybody happy. (6)
7. The Human Rights approach is here to set limits to the vicissitudes
and sways of the (socially insensitive) market. (Jolly, p.11)
Claudio Schuftan,
Hanoi
MAILTO:aviva@netnam.vn
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