essay on third world countries and human rights

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Human Rights from a Third World Perspective

Critique, History and International Law

BIARI alumni publication funding was granted to Critical Global Humanities alumnus, Jose-Manuel Barreto, to help publish the book,  Human Rights from a Third World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law .   The fourteen-chapter book, edited by Barreto, aims to compile a wealth of Third World interpretations of human rights, focusing in particular on the relationship between empires and colonies, the emergence of indigenous groups, and the negative consequences of globalization and neo-colonialism. The book seeks to develop a critique of and enter into a dialogue with Eurocentric interpretations of human rights. The introduction and the chapter “Imperialism and Decolonization as Scenarios of Human Rights History” were written by Barreto. The book also includes a chapter, “ The Dual  Haitian Revolution and the Making of Freedom in Modernity ,” by Critical Global Humanities convener  Professor Anthony Bogues . 

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Some Rights Are More Equal than Others: The Third World and the Transformation of Economic and Social Rights

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On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in a momentous night session of the United Nations General Assembly. For the first time, a “common standard of achievement” for human rights had been proclaimed and approved by an overwhelming majority of delegations. Unlike the great eighteenth-century declarations of 1776 and 1789, the Universal Declaration contained extensive provisions for economic and social rights, which were accorded parity with the more established civil and political rights. 1 The Western democracies, then steadily expanding their welfare states, had relatively few reservations about these newer additions. 2  Nor was there opposition from the small but growing collection of Asian and Arab countries, which embraced social rights as central to the postcolonial project. While eight states abstained on the final text, none of their objections targeted this striking innovation. The two representatives that came closest to wholesale philosophical rejection were those from South Africa, Mr. Eric Luow and Mr. C. T. Te Water. 3 Yet even their critique of the document drew little distinction between the two categories. Defending  apartheid  necessitated the repudiation of both political and social rights, and thus neither aspect of the document was acceptable. In the late 1940s, there was some form of normative consensus on economic and social rights, albeit one that was very weak, predicated on an evasive generality. On the other hand, questions like the right to self-determination, and appropriate rights implementation procedures, were the source of sharper and often more bitter divisions between the West, the Soviet Bloc, and the then nascent Third World.

Two decades later, the situation had been transformed, with the status of economic and social rights a principal fault line between the Western democracies and a much larger, and more assertive, Third World. At the First International Conference on Human Rights, held in April 1968 in Teheran, a rising chorus of Asian, African, and Arab voices urged greater emphasis on economic and social rights, challenging the indivisibility and interdependence that lay at the heart of the 1948 Universal Declaration. 4  Ato Solomon Tekle, from Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, encapsulated the new formulation. Economic and social rights, claimed Tekle, “formed the basis for all other human rights.” 5  He was hardly alone, with similar assertions of this hierarchy evident not only in the long political speeches but in the Teheran Proclamation itself. From traditional absolutists like Selassie, to more humane African socialists like Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, the Third World dramatically and radically revised the importance of social rights. By the 1970s, the special challenge posed by social rights was a nearly permanent fixture on the agenda of the General Assembly and its Commission on Human Rights.

This essay will examine the impact of the Third World on the development and subsequent reprioritization of economic and social rights. Between the 1940s and the late 1970s, these rights became an established feature of the international human rights order. While the Cold War division on human rights politics was often conceptualized as a struggle over the status of social rights in relation to traditional civil and political freedoms, there was significant support for economic and social rights from the Western democracies. 6  Conventional Cold War politics was ultimately a secondary influence on the evolution of economic and social rights at the UN. Much of the debate formed instead along the other major axis in the halls of the General Assembly, that between North and South. Engaging the politics of international development, modernization, and the balance of the global economic order, the battles on social rights were vastly more complicated, and more persistent, than liberal democrat versus Soviet autocrat. They would outlive the Cold War, finding expression at the fractious 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights and in the “Asian values” debates of the 1990s.

This essay argues for the transformative role of the Third World in the debate on social rights. For Asian, Arab, and African states faced with seemingly insoluble underdevelopment and poverty, economic and social rights held an immediacy that was often missing from Western, and indeed communist, rhetoric. Yet the challenge of delivering these rights in the context of immense and intractable resource constraints soon led to significant departures from the 1948 formulation of the two sets of rights being equal and interdependent. As early as the mid-1960s there were provocative claims of a hierarchy emerging from the Third World, which elevated the status of the economic and social above the civil and political, with the latter subordinated to the realization of those more pressing material needs. As the decade wore on, the logic of this argument evolved still further, with the pursuit of social rights becoming an alibi for top-down modernization. The rhetoric of development and modernization would eventually compromise the essential character of the rights themselves, taking them from freedoms focused on the individual to more collective and state-centric measures. 7  Development trumped civil and political rights, but it also irrevocably altered and damaged the very social rights it claimed to protect. No longer freedoms wielded by the individual, they were collective privileges bestowed upon peoples by paternalistic modernizers. The bearers of social rights became states, not their citizens—rhetorical weapons in a crusade against the wealthy North.

The Third World Approach to Social Rights in the Early UN: An Uneasy Equilibrium

As the Universal Declaration took shape in Lake Success and Geneva, the handful of Asian and Arab participants in the Commission on Human Rights pursued social rights with a measured enthusiasm. Typically, the Latin American and communist states pressed the newer rights with the greatest vigor and found allies among their Asian and Arab colleagues. 8  Key social rights contained in Article 25, such as the right to food, clothing, medical care, and shelter, were strongly supported by the Asian and Arab delegations. 9  Recognition of the right to clothing was granted on the direct initiative of the Philippines and China. The Egyptian delegates Omar Loutfi and Osman Obeid, as well as the Syrian Abdul Kayaly, made constructive contributions to the text as it passed through the commission and the General Assembly, but with a distinct lack of radicalism. 10  Kayaly proposed the inclusion of “social justice,” as embodied in the Islamic welfare system of Z akat ,   in the draft text. The measure failed, but it indicated his support for redistributive social security—and his attempt to find a meaningful cross-cultural equivalent for European and American mechanisms. 11  Syria would spend the following decade wracked by efforts to find politically acceptable mechanisms for social reformation, notably with the formation of Akram Hawrani’s Arab Socialist Party in 1950, and later its merger with the embryonic Baathist movement in 1953. The centerpiece of the new party’s platform was an extensive plan for social justice, welfare, and economic reconstruction.

Yet these early efforts at social rights advocacy were not evidence of any obvious attempt at generating a hierarchy. There were no strong assertions of priority, and the most explicit statement of emphasis from Philippine representative Salvador Lopez remained mild. Social rights, he observed, were of “particular importance” to the Philippines, but he went no further than this. 12  Nor was there any real suggestion of an order evident among Lopez’s colleagues. Charles Malik, the celebrated Thomist philosopher from Lebanon, was insistent that the material dimension of human rights was a mechanism to attain those more transcendent human aspirations. He cautioned the commission not to “fall into the error of over-simplification” and place undue weight on equality and full employment. Malik warned that “he would not be satisfied with mere social security and lack of discrimination except as means to a higher end, namely, the freedom of spirit.” 13  Hansa Mehta, a leader of India’s women’s movement and an MP in the first independent Constituent Assembly, was primarily concerned with the matter of implementation. Civil, political, economic, and social rights were all equally vital; the problem was how to make them real.

Only the Iranian delegate, Ghassame Ghani, openly advocated any prioritization of social development ahead of civil and political rights. In one of the first meetings of the commission, on February 4, 1947, he argued that education, sponsored by the UN, was a prerequisite for freedoms of opinion and expression, as

freedom of expression and of opinion were possible only in countries where the standard of education was high enough to allow the masses to form a sound opinion, and so he wished the United Nations to take steps first of all to eliminate illiteracy and promote education, by such means as granting financial assistance to backward countries. 14

While superficially resembling the authoritarian developmentalism that would become characteristic of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s regime in the 1960s, the Iranian argument on literacy was never advanced with any force in the commission of the 1940s. Ghassame Ghani notwithstanding, the seeds of the later conflict over priority were barely discernible across 1946–48 simply because there was no characteristic Third World position beyond a generally strong support for both sets of rights. 15  The aspirational quality to the declaration further softened the challenge of incorporating these newer freedoms; its form allowed a generality that would be impossible in a more conventional international treaty. As the human rights project moved to preparing legally binding obligations, in the draft covenants on human rights, the place of social rights would become considerably more problematic. 16

Different Rights, Different Covenants? The Third World and the International Human Rights Covenants

The debate over the covenants, which would span over five years, provoked a much more serious and sustained conflict over the character of social and economic rights. 17  This was most readily apparent in the very existence of two covenants: one on civil and political rights, and the second on economic, social, and cultural rights. When drafting commenced in the late 1940s, a single covenant was envisaged, but the dispute over how to incorporate social rights into the document eventually resulted in a decision to separate the two sets of rights. What was possible to accommodate within a single declaration was seemingly beyond resolution in the more precise realm of a covenant. The split itself would be seized upon by a body of human rights historiography that mapped the division onto Cold War politics, producing an elegant correspondence to the notional ideologies of East and West. 18  Closer examination of the covenants’ evolution reveals a complicated process, one in which the Cold War played a crucial role, but alongside a rising constellation of Third World voices in both the Third Committee of the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. 19

From 1950 onward, debate on the covenants revealed fundamental divisions on the nature of social rights, not only between the Western states and the Soviet Bloc but also between the West and the Third World. Indeed, they revealed obvious cleavages within the groups themselves. When articles on social rights were introduced into the draft covenant at the May 1950 session of the commission, the problems of transforming the lofty phrases of the declaration’s articles 22, 23, and 25 into legal entitlements precipitated an elaborate multiyear controversy. In the first significant consideration at Lake Success on May 9–10, the small Third World contingent was initially reluctant to support their inclusion in the draft text—though they strongly endorsed the principle of social rights. Ramadan (Egypt) thought they might be best in “a new covenant.” 20  Mehta, who was focused on the practical question of implementation, expressed concern about the inevitable delays social provisions would cause. Perhaps the most single-minded proponent of intrusive implementation measures, she argued that trying to find mechanisms for the newer generation of rights would cause “great difficulties.” 21  Malik shared many of Mehta’s reservations. Little progress was made in the session, leaving the more substantive debates for resumption in April 1951, when a special working group of the commission was established to investigate the place of social rights.

When the Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights met for its deliberations in Geneva in April 1951, it opened with a clash between Eleanor Roosevelt and the Egyptian delegate Mahmud Azmi on the relative importance of social rights. A lawyer by profession, Azmi had written extensively for Egyptian newspapers and journals. During his time in the human rights program, he was a tireless proponent of an individual right to petition, and he had served as de facto leader of the moderates within the embryonic Arab-Asian group in the early 1950s. On the explosive question of the right to self-determination, it was Azmi who had pursued compromise. The U.S. Department of State identified him as one of the program’s “outstanding personalities,” being a “keen, shrewd, and good-humored” representative, and “a champion of the underdeveloped countries.” 22  Yet for all of the praise the U.S. delegation lent him, Azmi was not allied to the West. The 1952 State Department summary singled him out as “one of our most vocal and skillful opponents.” 23

From the very first session of the working group, Azmi prosecuted the case against a U.S. proposal for vague and platitudinous phrases on economic progress, which it suggested as the basis for including social rights in the covenant text. 24  On the morning of April 26, 1951, Azmi lambasted Roosevelt’s draft as utterly contrary to the needs of the covenant. His critique, which amplified an earlier attack from the Chilean delegate, Hernan Santa Cruz, was emphatic that the social provisions of the draft had to be much more than general promises:

The very word “right” was lacking from the United States proposal. How was that conceivable when the Commission had met in order to define certain rights? The proposal referred instead to “undertakings” by States parties to the Covenant, which would simply agree to promote conditions of economic, social and cultural progress and development. That was very different from defining rights and imposing guarantees. All governments endeavoured of their own free will to promote progress in so far as their means and possibilities allowed. If no more than that were asked of them, the Covenant would simply be a recognition of the status quo, the consecration as it were of the slow rate of progress in various countries. 25

Azmi frankly advised that it would be “wholly impossible” to work with Roosevelt’s text. Economic and social rights were distinct from general social progress and development, and the commission needed to innovate, to “break new ground and state certain principles in precise language.” 26  It was a wholesale rejection of the U.S. approach, albeit phrased with Azmi’s distinctive politeness.

For her part, Roosevelt was adamant that hard provisions on social rights were out of the question in the legally binding covenant, and she launched a fierce counterattack in the afternoon session. Doubtlessly aware of the vocal domestic critique of the “socialistic” tendency in UN rights work—which would culminate in the near-triumph of Senator John Bricker’s campaign and U.S. withdrawal from the covenants process entirely in April 1953—Roosevelt urged “the greatest possible caution.” 27  Taking aim firmly at Azmi, Roosevelt highlighted the potential problems that social rights might present to the developing world, not least to Egypt:

At the previous meeting the Egyptian representative had made an impassioned appeal that the various principles concerned should be termed “rights.” She was most anxious to know precisely what he had intended by that appeal. When he spoke of a right, did he mean something which could be put to the test of litigation? Would an Egyptian be able to go to his national courts on the grounds that he was not receiving some of the social security to which he was entitled? Would in fact each Egyptian worker enjoy every right proclaimed in the draft Covenant? 28

It was a powerful argument, consistent with Roosevelt’s position in the Universal Declaration, where she had once warned against “passing laws to punish countries for failing to supply what they did not have and could not get.” 29  When it came to the covenant, rights should be confined to those that could be realized in the very near term, with the requisite resources plausibly available. Azmi was undeterred and spoke proudly of the social security laws that had been recently passed by King Farouk’s government, then experiencing a brief efflorescence before its terminal decline. The social security reforms themselves were among the first to benefit from an assistance program, Point Four, which had been launched by Truman in 1949. 30  A gracious and diplomatically astute Roosevelt later apologized.

At the most fundamental level, the working group was engaged in an effort to determine the meaning of social rights. As the sessions continued, and with little tangible progress, Roosevelt elaborated a new position on what the newer generation of rights entailed. Previously, she had viewed the term as “a legal right which each State would confer at once upon all its subjects.” 31  That was now superseded by a more nuanced definition informed by the preceding deliberations:

She now understood . . . that the Commission was taking the word “right” . . . as meaning that the economic, social and cultural provisions were to be implemented progressively by the promotion of conditions favouring their achievement. That was a different use of the word . . . If, however, in the provisions dealing with economic, social and cultural rights the Commission was using the word “right” in a limited sense, and that was understood, she would have no objection. 32

The British representative, Marguerite Bowie, echoed Roosevelt’s interpretation, observing that “`right’ was being used with two different meanings.” 33  Whether these twin meanings could co-exist in the same covenant was not yet clear—Britain had failed to reconcile them in the European Convention, concluded the previous year, yet was simultaneously erecting the edifice of a full-blown welfare state at home. 34  As Bowie spoke, one of the architects of Britain’s new national health system, Aneurin Bevan, was at the apex of his political power, poised to challenge for the Labour leadership. Social rights were far from marginal domestically, but they seemingly became so in international fora.

Despite the efforts of the working group to facilitate progress, the political and philosophical challenge of social rights consumed much of the April–May 1951 session in Geneva. The architects of the early human rights program, including René Cassin (France), Roosevelt, Malik, Mehta, and Santa Cruz (Chile), tried to find a formula that would adequately reflect the special quality of social rights, which were almost universally acknowledged as being of a different nature when it came to implementation. Directed by the General Assembly to prepare a single covenant, the session would close with a commission divided on whether there was any feasible prospect of doing so in the immediate future. The plight of the underdeveloped world would become a central issue in the course of the meetings.

From the earliest stages of the session, on April 16, a split on social rights was manifest. Platon Morozov (USSR) issued standard Soviet boilerplate on workers, a position that was coupled with the staunch and predictable Soviet refusal to countenance any meaningful implementation procedures. 35  Bowie (UK) unhelpfully questioned whether the General Assembly vote for a single covenant was sufficiently overwhelming to be taken as settled. 36  An unusually blunt Cassin explained that “one could not hope by a single waft of the magic wand” to realize social rights, which would require “years of effort.” 37  The commission, he warned, “should not be content to put up a sort of advertisement hoarding, making promises which governments would be unable to keep.” 38  Azmi tended to agree with Cassin, but with some important reservations. 39  Roosevelt hoped for a “middle course,” with a general statement on economic and social rights. 40  Various compromises on the progressive realization of these rights were advanced to that effect. The United States proposed that the rights might be enacted by a state “within the framework of its organization and compatible with its resources.” France suggested a similar phrase, “in accordance with their organization and resources.” 41  Neither formulation met with much acclaim. It was not the most auspicious start, and the core obstacle of resource constraints remained. Privately, the chief of the UN Division of Human Rights, John Humphrey, despaired at the session’s proceedings. In his diary entry for May 14, 1951, Humphrey registered “the blackest pessimism” about the prospects of “anything worthwhile” emerging from the commission’s work. It was among the bleakest moments in his five volumes of reflections. 42

As the most extreme example of the problems of realizing economic and social rights in the face of austere material conditions, the Third World was a focal point of debate, and Third World delegates were energetic in their participation. Azmi and Mehta highlighted the importance of international assistance and cooperation, which would be channelled through the UN’s specialized agencies. For his part, Azmi sought a modest extension of the language that would enable resources from outside the state to be marshalled by the developing countries. In a realistic appraisal of the situation, he asserted that “it was unlikely that the available resources of the small countries, even if utilized to the maximum, would be sufficient.” 43  Given the reality of meager capital and limited specialist expertise, “those countries would have to fall back on international cooperation” to achieve the more resource-intensive of the social rights. It was a mild amendment, substituting the broader “whatever the resources available” in place of the state-based “to the maximum of their available resources,” but Azmi’s suggestion met with immediate scepticism from Denmark and Britain. The Danish representative, the eminent jurist Max Sorensen, observed that such language “might be equivalent to an engagement to use the resources of other States,” which was presumably out of the question. 44  A seemingly chastened Azmi was as careful to rule out any such implication in his response. Although it had been ruled out as unthinkable in 1951, vastly more insistent demands for precisely such redistribution would return with a vengeance in the latter part of the 1970s in a much more militant postcolonial UN.

Azmi also tried to narrow the concept of progressive realization, which had been applied without much distinction as to the different gradations within the category of social rights. 45 Instead of the simple dichotomous conception of all economic, social, and cultural rights being gradually and progressively implemented, he argued that some could take effect much more rapidly, much like the civil and political rights. To remedy this, he argued that the phrase “if necessary” should be inserted after the term “progressively,” thereby limiting the scope of that term to those rights that truly required time. 46  Sorensen was equally unsympathetic to this change, and few of the other representatives pursued it. It does not appear in the language of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which adopts a blanket provision for progressive realization. 47

As the session wore on, the problems of incorporating social rights into the covenant pushed some members of the commission to request permission to split the document, in contravention of their instructions from the General Assembly. While support for the split was predominantly Western, it was Mehta who most directly advanced the case for two covenants on May 18, 1951. As one of the representatives who took the UN’s rights work seriously, she rejected the idea of a single covenant that many states, India almost certainly included, would be unable to sign in good faith. 48  Reflecting a British tradition, with its priority on effective remedy and the courts, Mehta proposed a resolution that would allow the split. 49 Her defense of separating social from political was insistent on the logical distinction between the two categories of rights:

Economic, social and cultural rights differed from civil, civic and political rights inasmuch as the former were not justiciable, moreover, the Commission had itself proposed that separate systems of implementation should be adopted for the two categories of rights. Such being the case, she saw no reason to include both categories in one and the same Covenant. Moreover, civil, civic and political rights had to be drafted in precise legal terms whereas economic, social, and cultural rights could, by their very nature, be drafted only in general terms. A Covenant containing both sets would therefore lack equilibrium. 50

The Indian initiative won support from the United States, the UK, Greece, and Denmark but simultaneously provoked condemnation from the Latin American and communist delegations, as well as the rest of the small Third World group, namely, Egypt, Pakistan, China (Taiwan), and Lebanon. Sweden and France also voted against her resolution, and it failed to win adoption. 51

Although Mehta enjoyed friendly social relations with the Pakistani and Soviet representatives outside the commission’s chamber, they were implacably opposed to her rationale for removing social rights from the covenant. Dr. Abdul Waheed (Pakistan) launched a lengthy and impassioned plea for keeping all of the rights together. Waheed asserted that “a Covenant which contained no reference to economic, social and cultural rights would be meaningless.” He expressed Pakistan’s belief in “the Islamic ideal of the brotherhood of man and of the equal distribution of wealth and property” and was dismissive of the arguments over implementation:

The difficulty of implementing forthwith the provisions concerning economic, social and cultural rights was not sufficient reason for excluding those rights from the Covenant, and their inclusion in a separate Covenant would be tantamount to relegating them to a position of secondary importance, and to condemning the more backward countries to remain in their impoverished condition; thus the lofty ideals of the United Nations would be betrayed. His delegation refused to be party to that betrayal, and would therefore vote against the Indian proposal. 52

Waheed’s speech exemplified a markedly different strand of rhetoric that was becoming increasingly evident in the commission. Unlike Morozov’s denunciation of the Indian proposal, which focused on the United States and the evils of liberal capitalism rather than Mehta’s draft text, Pakistan was asserting the claims of the underdeveloped world.

As the session approached its close, Charles Malik, in his capacity as chair, identified the new trend and the new balance of forces that was emerging in the debate over economic and social rights. The question posed by the Indian resolution, he declared, “cut across all existing ideological alignments” and “would be encountered at every turn in the work of the United Nations.” The voice of the Third World was finding expression, and its urgent claim on economic and social rights required a serious response:

It was quite obvious that something would have to be done about it. During the past 150 years, certain peoples, who had not been in as privileged a position as others, had made their claims with regard to their economic, social and cultural position felt with growing insistence. It was essential to recognize that such rights were of equal importance with others, but they had to be considered in their proper place and in their proper order of importance. The significance of the sustained, persistent albeit quiet protest of certain under-developed countries against the conditions under which they were labouring, as much as against those existing in the rest of the world, must be given due weight. 53

Malik’s warning was prescient, with the early antagonism on economic and social rights escalating in the coming decades. While the move to split the covenant would ultimately succeed in February 1952, it did little to end the debate about the relative position of economic and social rights and how they might be realized in the developing world. 54

The Postcolonial UN: Which Rights Come First?

As decolonization accelerated, the UN itself was transformed, and with it the question of social rights. If the protest of the underdeveloped countries was quiet when Malik spoke in 1951, its volume was rising unmistakably. At the April 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, a distinctive Third World voice had coalesced, with more insistent calls for development, anticolonialism, and racial equality. 55  That same year, the extraparliamentary opposition in South Africa launched the Freedom Charter, which contained extensive provisions for social and economic rights as an integral part of the liberation struggle. At the UN a right to “economic self-determination” was demanded, to the horror and astonishment of the Western countries, which had only barely and resentfully acquiesced to the conventional political dimension of anticolonialism. 56  They had little choice. By the late 1950s, the voices of protest were well on the way to determining the trajectory of all human rights questions at the UN. By 1966, when the two covenants were finally promulgated, Third World domination of the General Assembly was a reality. In this new environment, the fragile balance between social rights and political rights was progressively disrupted. No single event trumpeted the shift, but the tendency was clear enough by the second half of the 1960s.

At the first dedicated seminar on human rights in the developing world, held in Kabul in May 1964, the assembled delegations focused on the imperatives of development and the social rights it would presumably enable. The setting itself was revealing, with Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah then embarking on a campaign of modernization and political reform, a “New Democracy” to deliver civil liberties and material well-being. 57  Zahir Shah’s opening address, on May 12, cited the problems faced by the Third World, where poverty, poor literacy, and general underdevelopment had “created important obstacles which hinder progress towards the attainment of these rights.” 58  While the monarch was careful to avoid the suggestion of priority, the seminar was not entirely convinced. A number of the participants, drawn predominantly from across Asia, asserted that “the primary duty of the State was to promote the economic growth of the country and raise the standard of living of the population.” These development activities might “at times lead to restrictions upon the exercise of certain human rights.” 59

Two years later, when the seminar met in Dakar in February 1966, the mood had shifted further toward a “trade” between political rights and economic and social rights. While Senegal had been one of the few African states to preserve a measure of its democracy, and some respect for human rights, the signs among the assembled participants were ominous. After lengthy assertions of African particularity, as well as an extensive critique of the 1948 Universal Declaration, the seminar turned its attention to the relationship between social rights, development, and human rights in the general case. When political rights were discussed on February 15–16, they were relegated to a secondary and subordinate position. The session was led by Musonda Justin Chimba, the Zambian minister for labor, who had overseen a reform measure that gave him control of the country’s trade union movement. 60 Political participation, some argued, was essentially an instrument to further economic and social progress. As one speaker claimed, “the individual was inseparable from society,” and accordingly his “fundamental right to take part in political activities should be regarded as his right to participate in the efforts to society to achieve development.” 61  Others went further still, contesting the very notion that African peoples had a concept of political rights that could be decoupled from social and material advancement. According to one participant, “in the African mind . . . the idea of freedom of association, for instance, was practically meaningless to the citizen, unless the specific purpose of such association was to obtain better living conditions.” 62  It was a far cry from the model of interdependence articulated in 1948.

For Humphrey, who had arranged the seminar personally, it was a watershed moment. The events at Dakar revealed the deep chasm between the demands of the increasingly authoritarian postcolonial modernizers and the concept of individual human rights:

I do not remember any discussion of human rights in a U.N. body which was as frank, animated, or so revealing. The big issue of course was the conflict between individual human rights and the “necessities” of development in an underdeveloped continent—collective rights. 63

With authoritarian regimes proliferating across Africa and Asia, and the discourse of modernization and development gaining ever more prominence, it was perhaps self-evident which of these two forces was more likely to triumph in the coming years. 64

When the First International Conference on Human Rights met in Teheran in April and May 1968, the upward revision in the status of social rights was officially consecrated. From the opening moments of the conference, the new mood was striking. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who launched the conference on April 22, strongly emphasized the importance of economic development and social modernization. Feigning deference to the principles of the Universal Declaration, the shah asserted that it was “necessary to adjust them to the requirements of our time.” This adjustment involved a reordering of priorities:

The conditions of man’s political and material life have been changing throughout these two decades, and the very notion of human rights should consequently be regarded in a new light. As I have said repeatedly in the last few years, human rights until not very long ago meant first and foremost the political and juridical equality of individuals. In our day, however, political rights without social rights, justice under law without social justice, and political democracy without economic democracy no longer have any true meaning. Viewed in this light, the real progress of our time consists in breaking daily some more of the chains which privileged minorities have for centuries imposed on the less fortunate masses. 65

With its emphasis on the social and economic sphere, the speech reflected the shah’s own program of authoritarian modernization and top-down social development, the so-called White Revolution. 66  By focusing on modernization, even a hereditary monarch could plausibly lay claim to being a “white” revolutionary pursuing those more important human rights for his collective “people.”

Vocal support for the new balance of rights followed, led by the conference president, the shah’s twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. Ashraf had already proved an able and effective diplomat, chairing the 1965 session of the Commission on the Status of Women. 67  A self-proclaimed champion of the Third World, the princess asserted that it was time to question the path set out in the Universal Declaration, which “had come into being at a specific date in the development of the United Nations,” prior to decolonization. 68  Consequently, it “corresponded to a certain moment in the evolution of ideas about human rights,” a moment which, it seemed, had now been superseded. 69  From the Philippines, then on the eve of the “New Society” of Ferdinand Marcos, to Pakistan, under General Ayub Khan’s “Basic Democracy,” to the scientific socialism of Mauritania’s Parti de Peuple Mauritanienne, the blueprint of authoritarian modernization was all too familiar. 70  All were, in some sense, “white revolutionaries,” concentrating power in the hands of the state in the name of material progress.

Ayub Khan’s government was a prime example of the new mindset, which collapsed social rights into broader development goals, which would be led and managed by the state. Shortly before the opening of the conference, Pakistan’s authoritarian modernization was reviewed, unsurprisingly with some favor, at the Third Economic Development Seminar, held in Karachi between March 30 and April 2, 1968. 71  Ayub Khan had justified his turn toward “Basic Democracy,” a euphemism for a vast diminution of popular participation on the basis of national unity and accelerated development:

It is too much to expect a man, sick and illiterate, and worried about his next meal, to think in terms of national policies . . . My own analysis had led me to the conclusion that Pakistan needed a strong government capable of taking decisions which might not be popular but which were necessary for the safety, integrity and, in particular, development of the country . . . I was quite clear in my mind that until our educational and economic standards and the level of political responsibility improved considerably, the only course for us was to adopt indirect elections. 72

Enjoyment of rights by the sick and illiterate would follow development, though Khan’s own model readily embraced massive transitional inequality, securely insulated from the whims of his irresponsible citizens. 73

While less full-throated than the calls of the shah, or the autocratic musings of Ayub Khan, the official position of the conference indicated a significant shift in the balance of rights. The final proclamation stated that “the full realization of civil and political rights without the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights is impossible.” 74  An explicit statement regarding the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights being dependent on civil and political rights was absent. It was an avowedly unidirectional model of interdependence. Respect for human rights was “dependent upon sound and effective . . . economic and social development.” 75  This was a reasonable assertion in and of itself, but it was unleavened by any serious statement on the relationship with political rights. According to the despondent postconference report from the International Commission of Jurists, the proclamation “may even be said to limit the pronouncements of the Universal Declaration.” 76  Given the setting of its adoption, the quiescent parliament building of the archetypal authoritarian modernizer, it was an appropriate outcome.

Authoritarian Modernization: Destroying Rights in Order to Save Them

Calls for the priority of development, ostensibly to further economic and social rights, continued to mount in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The International Human Rights Year (1968) closed with the chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Senegal’s Ibrahima Boye, emphasizing the economic needs of the Third World. On the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration, Boye urged renewed focus on development, in the name of human rights:

How can a poor people, physically, morally and intellectually unhealthy, enjoy civil and political rights. He has neither the material, nor the intellectual, nor the physical capacity. It is for this reason that I attach as much importance to the economic aspect of my statement as to its political aspect. 77

Boye, who would become a pivotal figure in Senegal’s shift back to a multiparty system in the 1970s, was doubtlessly sincere. Yet the unrelenting focus on social rights would compromise their quality as individual freedoms and instead serve to legitimize the heavy hand of growingly repressive Third World governments.

Increasingly, social rights were detached from the human rights milieu, with its focus on individuals, and repartitioned into broader exhortations to development and progress. This new frame bore more resemblance to the kind of vague promises Roosevelt had originally proposed, and Azmi rejected, in the early 1950s. The centerpiece was the December 1969 Declaration on Social Progress and Development, a largely inoffensive omnibus of demands for international economic justice, social rights, and progress. Among the otherwise unexceptional collection of platitudes, the declaration explicitly extended the notion of individual rights to state rights and national social progress to interstate equality: “The creation of conditions for rapid and sustained social and economic development, particularly in the developing countries . . . in which equality of opportunity should be as much a prerogative of nations as of individuals within a nation.” 78  The logic of the postcolonial arguments for sovereignty and self-determination was stretched onto the social and economic plane. States were themselves the bearers of some kind of social rights, which the international community was urged to protect.

At the dawn of the 1970s, the campaign for economic and social rights was fused with the Third World justifications for the concentration of state power. From Zambia, where Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was preparing the outline of his one-party developmental state, to Tanzania, where Julius Nyerere was embarking on a disastrous and coercive program of collective villages, the individual character of social rights was being discarded. 79  The 1973 Dar es Salaam conference on rights and the problems of Africa encapsulated the new mentality. Among the predominantly African states represented it was a “widely shared” view “that the exigencies of economic growth may at times justify the temporary subordination of the interests and rights of the individual to those of the state.” 80  Diminution of civil and political rights was regarded as more or less unremarkable by some. It was, they argued, “only natural that most governments had concentrated more on economic, social and cultural rights than on political and civil rights. In many cases, the move had been towards a concentration of power.” 81  Individual freedom had to be “put aside temporarily until the majority of the African people had been educated and their conditions of living improved.” 82 Deep paternalism and the collective modernization of the state were the hallmarks of the post-Teheran approach to human rights.

Buoyed by its oil wealth, and the apparent success of its modernization effort, Iran was the most vigorous exponent of trading away individual liberties for collective development goals. The charismatic Princess Ashraf led the charge, chief evangelist of state development. In her speech to the General Assembly on November 9, 1977, two weeks after the shah’s visit to Carter’s White House, Ashraf abandoned any pretense of balancing the two sets of rights, or, indeed, of deference to the individual:

Certain countries which had a tendency to lecture on civil and political rights had apparently forgotten the realities of a universe which did not belong to them . . . While the Western countries stressed the rights of the individual, the developing countries were thinking of the rights of entire peoples. The former spoke of the immediate implementation of civil and political rights, while the latter strove to establish economic ones. 83

“Peoples,” as opposed to individuals, were now the bearers of economic and social rights. Social rights were collective rights.

In a parallel process that reached its zenith in the 1974 New International Economic Order (NIEO), the postcolonial state itself became the bearer of the “right” to claim resources from the global community—with precious little assurance that its citizens would be granted anything at the individual level. 84  The major pillar of the NIEO, the 1974 Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States, was unashamedly focused on the distribution of wealth among countries and essentially silent on the enjoyment of social rights by the population. Rhetoric inflected with the ideas of this NIEO became a staple of Third World campaigns of the 1970s, demanding global equality of states on the economic level, rather than merely in terms of political sovereignty.

Even for one of the more humanistic of the Third World leaders, the NIEO campaign was unconcerned about the treatment of individuals within states. Julius Nyerere, in his 1979 reflections on the new crusade, was adamant that human rights violations within the southern alliance had to be put aside in the name of solidarity:

Tanzania has liberated itself politically from the North. But it is possible that a country may liberate itself externally and still remain internally under a fascist government . . . For international purposes we should act together even though internal liberation may not have been achieved by all of us to the same level. We may criticise tyrannical, brutal or unjust governments and regimes in the Third World, but we must not do this in the context of the North-South debate, and we must not exclude such countries from the Group of 77 or any other group which is involved in the North-South negotiations or confrontation. Unity among the Third World is essential at this stage . . . without it we shall risk heavy defeat in the struggle for economic liberation. 85

It was one of the baldest statements of the purpose of the NIEO, which sought “external” liberation only and was wholly indifferent to its “internal” sibling.

Some Third World human rights advocates did try to prepare a synthesis of the state-dominated NIEO with individual rights. Keba M’Baye, the Senegalese jurist who famously proposed a “right to development,” exemplified this line of argument, which placed the realization of human rights back with the international community. In 1974, the year of the NIEO, M’Baye declared to the commission that a fairer global balance of wealth would ensure a true universality of rights, which remained illusory under the existing neocolonial order: “It was the responsibility of the international community to transform the system so that each country could benefit, according to its efforts, from the general prosperity.” 86  From this, M’Baye concluded that “the responsibility for ensuring everyone enjoyed human rights fell largely upon the rich countries.” M’Baye’s new right attempted to sidestep around the centrality of the state and reconnect the individual bearer of the right with the global community which would deliver it. While his proposed reorganization would be at the level of states, individuals were at least dimly recognizable as the ultimate ends. Such ideas would gain considerable momentum, culminating in the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development. 87  To its critics, the Right to Development was mere window dressing for the global redistributionist agenda of the original NIEO—an objection made abundantly apparent in the U.S. dissent to the final text.

Conclusions: The Perils of Sovereignty

The depressing trajectory of economic and social rights in much of the Third World reflected the limits of decolonization. When in power, colonial administrators delivered few civil and political rights, and decidedly limited social rights. In the moment of decolonization, they could, begrudgingly, deliver statehood and independence to their colonies. They could bequeath constitutions and institutions that formally respected civil and political rights. 88  But they could not deliver the majority of the more substantial social rights: health, shelter, and education. Forestalling those expensive demands had proved an incentive to actually grant independence in the first place. 89  Postcolonial governments were unable to do much better in many cases. Just like the imperial administrations, they lacked the means, ability, and will to respect social rights in the near term. Yet unlike the authoritarianism of the colonial modernizers, political independence had attenuated their claim on the resources of the metropolitan territory. For a number of Third World populations, the result was in some ways the worst of all possible worlds: a repressive developmental state with inadequate means for development and no recourse to share in the riches of the empire.

In many ways, the emphasis on sovereignty and the state was intrinsically part of the problem, and the durable sovereignty of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was principally authored by the Third World. From the 1960 Declaration on Colonialism, which insisted on the nation-state as the default condition for the world’s territory, to the 1965 Declaration on Non-Intervention, which hardened its boundaries, to the 1970 Declaration on Friendly Relations, which fortified them further, sovereignty was the premier organizing concept in international relations. Nationalist leaders were rightly adamant in their demands for self-determination. They were understandably jealous of their sovereignty. They were depressingly emphatic about the urgency of strengthening their fledgling states. Yet by the 1970s, when decolonization was essentially complete, and formal sovereign equality recognized, they were left with frankly unsaleable arguments about achieving material equality between countries, a coerced solidarity of states, not humanity.

With the fate of the individual often marginal in the rhetoric of Third World governments, social rights were eclipsed by collective concepts of development and global distributive justice. Responsibility for delivering social rights devolved to the developed world, which typically treated such assistance not as fulfilment of an obligation but as discretionary charity to a supplicant government. Much as the proponents of the NIEO and the Right to Development argued otherwise, development was never transformed into a matter of right in the halls of Washington or the chancelleries of Europe, one as real as their pension and health expenditures. The great national transformation of charity and contingent privilege into right, a shift that accelerated and consolidated across the Western world in the postwar era, was essentially run backward internationally. Social rights were obscured in a phalanx of development rights and revolutionary economic claims. Citizens and individuals were aggregated into mendicant states. Whatever limited solidarity had once bound the rich to the poor was ruptured, leaving only the “horizontal” solidarity of the Third World against the equally “horizontal” solidarity of the wealthy First. The genuine global solidarity that social rights required was never realized, and worse still, it seemed to recede ever further the more insistently it was demanded.

1. See Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi,  Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice  (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2008), 187–91.

2. For the recent, and resurgent, historiographical debate on the Western position on economic and social rights in this period, both in the UN and more generally, see Daniel J. Whelan and Jack Donnelly, “The West, Economic and Social Rights, and the Global Human Rights Regime: Setting the Record Straight,”  Human Rights Quarterly  29, no. 4 (2007): 908–49; Alex Kirkup and Tony Evans, “The Myth of Western Opposition to Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights? A Reply to Whelan and Donnelly,”  Human Rights Quarterly  31, no. 1 (2009): 221–37; Whelan and Donnelly, “Yes, a Myth: A Reply to Kirkup and Evans,”  Human Rights Quarterly  31, no. 1 (2009): 239–55;   Susan L. Kang,  “ The Unsettled Relationship of Economic and Social Rights and the West: A Response to Whelan and Donnelly,”  Human Rights Quarterly  31, no. 4 (2009): 1006–29; Whelan and Donnelly, “The Reality of Western Support for Economic and Social Rights: A Reply to Susan L. Kang,”  Human Rights Quarterly  31, no. 4 (2009): 1030–54.

3. Johannes Morsink,  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent  (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 26–28, incl. n. 52. See also Morsink,  Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,   2009), 72–77.

4. Roland Burke, “From Individual Rights to National Development: The First UN International Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 1968,” Journal of World History  19, no. 3 (2008): 275–96.

5. Official records of the International Human Rights Conference, Teheran, 5th plenary meeting, April 24, 1968, UN document A/CONF.32/SR.5, Ethiopia.

6. A reasonably convincing case for Western support for economic and social rights has been argued by Whelan and Donnelly, “Setting the Record Straight.” Cf. Tony Evans,  The Politics of Human Rights: A Global Perspective  (London: Pluto Press, 2001), 23–26.

7. The eminent academic specialist on human rights Louis Henkin argues that the Third World had little interest in any recognizable human rights, despite its metronomic profession to be actively pursuing economic and social rights. Instead, the focus was always on the state, in achieving sovereignty and national development. See, for instance, Henkin,  The Rights of Man Today  (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1979), 111–12.

8. Morsink,  Universal Declaration,  157–238.   See also Mary Ann Glendon, “The Forgotten Crucible: The Latin American Influence on the Universal Human Rights Idea,”  Harvard Human Rights Journal  16 (spring 2003): 35–37. Hernán Santa Cruz, the Chilean representative, was the most consistent and outspoken proponent of the economic and social rights, unwavering in his demands for their inclusion. See, for example, Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 50th meeting, May 27, 1948, E/CN.4/SR.50, 6.

9. Susan Waltz, “Reclaiming and Rebuilding the History of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,”  Third World Quarterly  23, no. 3 (2002): 444.

10. See also Susan Waltz, “Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States,” Human Rights Quarterly  26, no. 4 (2004): 825–27.

11. Morsink,  Universal Declaration,  204–7.   See also Mary Ann Glendon,  A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  (New York: Random House, 2001), 157.

12. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 64th meeting, June 8, 1948,dE/CN.4/SR.64, 15.

13. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 50th meeting, May 27, 1948,dE/CN.4/SR.50, 5. Malik went on to discuss the task of resolving “a hierarchy of values,” which would be a central task of the commission.

14. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 14th meeting, February 4, 1947, E/CN.4/SR.14, 4.

15. Antonio Cassese tends to view the positive engagement of the non-Western states as a more straightforward expression of pro-Western orientation. See Cassese,  Human Rights in a Changing World  (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), 33.

16. For a detailed account of the problems of moving from declaration to covenant, and the evolution of economic and social rights more generally, see Daniel J. Whelan,  Indivisible Human Rights  (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

17. Although not passed by the General Assembly until 1966, the content of both covenants was essentially complete by 1955.

18. See, for example, the otherwise compelling works from Costas Douzinas,  Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism  (London: Routledge, 2007), 29–30; Tony Evans,  Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal  (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 10–11; and Matthew Craven,  The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Perspective on Its Development  (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 9.

19. For a brief précis, see Normand and Zaidi,  Human Rights at the UN , 200–210.

20. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 185th meeting, May 10, 1950, E/CN.4/SR.185, para. 28.

21. Ibid., para. 5.

22. U.S. Department of State, Report on the Third Committee of the General Assembly: October 14–December 22, 1952, April 1953, 16, 320.13/14–753, Decimal File 1950–1954; General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, NACP; Report on the Third Committee: September 15–December 9, 1953, March 1954, 22, 320.13/3–1754, RG 59, NACP.

23. Department of State, 1952 Report, 16. Azmi’s skill here is with reference to the freedom of information agenda item.

24. Compilation of the proposals relating to economic, social, and cultural rights, ca. April 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/2.

25. Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, April 26, 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/SR.1, 22.

27. Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, April 26, 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/SR.2. Economic and social rights were among the foremost targets for Senator Bricker. In an address in Cincinnati on November 14, 1951, he denounced this dimension of the Covenant in harsh and hyperbolic terms. Provisions on the right to shelter, he claimed, reflected “the fundamental principles of Marxian socialism.” In sum, the Covenant, said Bricker, “would make it obligatory for the Government to try to satisfy the unlimited economic and social wants of all its citizens.” See Jesse Solomon, “Human Rights Covenant,” Washington Post , November 20, 1951. For further discussion of the Bricker amendment and its context, see Richard Davies,  Defender of the Old Guard: John Bricker and American Politics  (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1993); Duane Tananbaum,  The Bricker Amendment Controversy: A Test of Eisenhower’s Political Leadership  (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988). See also Carol Anderson,  Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 228–30.

28. Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, April 26, 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/SR.2, 6.

29. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 76th meeting, June 16, 1948, E/CN.4/SR.78, 12.

30. See generally Amy Johnson,  Reconstructing Rural Egypt: Ahmed Hussein and the History of Egyptian Development  (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004), 119–62.

31. Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, April 27, 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/SR.3, 5.

32. Ibid. Shortly after the session in Geneva, Roosevelt would reflect on this different usage of “right,” and the Third World enthusiasm for social rights, in a letter to President Truman. She was mindful of the domestic complications it might hold: “The reason they go all out on economic and social rights in the Human Rights Commission is because those are the rights that mean something tangible to them in their every day lives. They do not expect them to be achieved overnight, but they use the word `right’ in a different sense than we do legally. How we are going to explain all this to the American Bar Association and Congress I do not know.” Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry Truman, May 27, 1951, reproduced in Eleanor Roosevelt,  Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman , ed. Steve Neal (New York: Scribner, 2002), 203.

33. Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, April 27, 1951, E/CN.4/AC.14/SR.3, 12.

34. Although Britain was building its welfare state, many in both the Labour and Conservative parties remained hesitant about conceptualizing such measures as universal rights. This cautious position was apparent in the preparation of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. See A. W. Brian Simpson,  Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

35. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 203rd meeting, April 16, 1951, E/CN.4/SR. 203, 4–5.

36. The relevant resolution was fairly decisive, with thirty-eight in favor of adopting the text. See Verbatim Records of the General Assembly, 317th Plenary Meeting, December 4, 1950, A/PV. 317; Draft International Covenant on Human Rights and Measures of Implementation: future work of the Commission on Human Rights, December 4, 1950, General Assembly Res. 421 (V). Whelan gives an excellent analysis of the debate and its implications in  Indivisible Human Rights , 77–90.

37. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 203rd meeting, April 16, 1951, E/CN.4/SR. 203, 11.

39. Ibid., 13.

40. Ibid., 15.

41. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 232nd meeting, May 8, 1951, E/CN.4/SR. 232, 12.

42. John P. Humphrey,  On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of John Humphrey, First Director of the United Nations Division of Human Rights , ed. A. J. Hobbins, 4 vols. (Montreal: McGill University Libraries, 1994), 2: 213.

43. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 236th meeting, May 10, 1951, E/CN.4/SR. 236, 18.

44. Ibid., 20, 24.

45. The notion that all economic and social rights are “positive,” and all civil and political rights “negative,” has been a persistent and influential argument. It also an oversimplification of the measures required for the effective enjoyment of both sets of rights. Maurice Cranston’s popular work is the best example of this logic. See Cranston,  What Are Human Rights? (London: Bodley Head, 1973),   65–71.

46. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 236th meeting, May 10, 1951,dE/CN.4/SR. 236, 18.

47. International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), December16, 1966, Res. 2200A (XXI), part II, article 2, para. 1.

48. The 1950 Indian constitution made the very distinction that Mehta elaborated, placing social rights in a separate category. In Part III, the constitution provides for civil and political rights, which are enforceable through the courts. Part IV lists a set of “Directive Principles” that must guide state policy. It is in this latter section that the economic and social rights are cataloged, principally in Article 39, though there are no mechanisms for individual recourse against the government. There is one social right in Part III, Article 23, a prohibition on economic exploitation. For further discussion, see K. R. Venugopal, “A Social Charter for India,” in  A Social Charter for India: Citizens’ Perspective of Basic Rights , ed. Dubey Muchkund (Delhi: Pearson/Longman, 2009), 47–49.

49. Draft Resolution, May 1951, E/CN.4/619/Rev.1.

50. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 248th meeting, May 18, 1951,dE/CN.4/SR. 248, 6.

51. Ibid., 26.

52. Ibid., 12.

53. Ibid., 26.

54. For the decision to split the covenant, see Draft Covenant on Human Rights and Draft Measures of Implementation, February 4, 1952, General Assembly Res. 543 (VI).

55. See generally George Kahin,  The Asian-African Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955  (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956); Jason Parker, “Cold War II: The Eisenhower Administration, the Bandung Conference, and the Re-Periodization of the Postwar Era,”  Diplomatic History  30, no. 5 (2006): 867–92; Roland Burke, “The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom: Human Rights at the Bandung Conference,”  Human Rights Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2006): 947–65.

56. For the question of “economic self-determination,” see the Declaration on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, December 14, 1962, General Assembly Res. 1803 (XVII); the preceding Res. 523 (VI), January 12, 1952; and Res. 626 (VII), December 21, 1952. See also Nico Shrivjer,  Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 33–84.

57. Angelo Rasanayagam,  Afghanistan: A Modern History. Monarchy, Despotism or Democracy? The Problems of Governance in the Muslim Tradition  (London: Tauris, 2005), 38–49.

58. Message from King Mohammed Zahir Shah in Report of the Seminar on Human Rights in Developing Countries, Kabul, Afghanistan, May 12–25, 1964, ST/TAO/HR/21, 44.

59. Report of the Seminar, ST/TAO/HR/21, paras. 20–21. At least some of these restrictions would affect economic and social rights as well, as some of the speakers defended forced labor as necessary for national mobilization and modernization. Ibid., para. 164.

60. William Tordoff and R. V. Molteno,  Politics in Zambia  (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974), 298–99.

61. Report of the Seminar on Human Rights in Developing Countries, Dakar, Senegal, February 8–22, 1966, ST/TAO/HR/25, para. 153. See generally Maxime Tardu, “L’Individu et l’état en Afrique tropicale,”  McGill Law Journal  13 (1967): 277–302.

62. Report of the seminar, ST/TAO/HR/25, para. 154.

63. Entry for Sunday, February 20, 1966, Humphrey,  On the Edge of Greatness , 4: 188. See also John Humphrey to C. V. Narasimhan, Memorandum on Dakar, February 16, 1966. S-0198–003–09, UN Archives.

64. For the emergence and influence of modernization theory, particularly the work of Lucian Pye, Edward Shils, and Walt Rostow, see Nils Gilman,  Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in the Cold War  (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); Bradley Simpson,  Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968  (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008).

65.  Verbatim Text of Address by His Imperial Majesty the Shahinsha Aryamehr, International Conference on Human Rights , 3. S-0883-018-008, UN Archives.

66. This philosophy is articulated in Mohammed Reza Pahlavi,  The White Revolution (Teheran: Kayhan Press, 1961), 21, 170–71.

67. The 1965 Commission on the Status of Women was held in Teheran and facilitated by the shah’s government. Its setting, the Hilton hotel, was rather more comfortable than the New Majlis building used for the 1968 conference.

68. Official records of the International Human Rights Conference, Teheran, 1st plenary meeting, April 22, 1968, A/CONF. 32/SR. 1, Conference President Ashraf. Ashraf’s aspirations for Third World leadership are openly expressed in her autobiography. See Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile  (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1980), xii, 174.

69. A/CONF. 32/SR. 1, Conference President Ashraf.

70. Official records of the International Human Rights Conference, Teheran 4th Plenary Meeting, April 24, 1968, A/CONF. 32/SR. 4, Philippines; 14th Plenary Meeting, April 30, 1968, A/CONF. 32/SR. 14, Pakistan, Mauritania. For the political program of General Ayub Khan, which drew heavily on development as a justification for the limitation of democracy, see Mohammed Ayub Kahn,  Friends not Masters: A Political Autobiography  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). For the case of the Philippines and its “New Society” and “Revolution from the Centre,” see Ferdinand Marcos,  Notes on the New Society of the Philippines  (Manila: Marcos Foundation, 1976).

71.  Pakistan in the Development Decade: Problems and Performance. Proceedings of the Third Economic Development Seminar, Karachi, 30 March–2 April, 1968  (Karachi, 1968).

72. Ayub Kahn,  Friends not Masters,  208, 213, 215.

73. Christopher Candland,  Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan (London: Routledge, 2011), 77–83.

74. Article 13, United Nations Conference on Human Rights, Proclamation of Teheran, May 13, 1968, A/CONF. 32/41. Reproduced in “United Nations Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 22 April to 13 May, 1968: Proclamation of Teheran,”  American Journal of International   Law  63 (1969): 674–77.

76. International Commission of Jurists, United Nations Conference on Human Rights: report by Miss Muireann McHugh, approved by Mr. Sean McBride, Secretary-General, S.2021, 21–22. Excerpts are reproduced in Moses Moskowitz,  International Concern with Human Rights  (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1974), 179–80.

77.  Statement by Chairman of Commission on Human Rights, Ibrahima Boye, on 20th Anniversary of Declaration of Human Rights , December 9, 1968, UN Document GA/3845/HRD/50, 4.

78. Declaration on Social Progress and Development, December 11, 1969, General Assembly Res. 2542 (XXIV), available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/progress.htm (accessed January 30, 2012).

79. For the Kaunda program for a one-party state, see Jan Pettman, “Zambia’s Second Republic: The Establishment of a One-Party State,”  Journal of Modern African Studies  12, no. 2 (1974): 231–44. Nyerere’s modernization ideology and its consequences are assessed in Kjell J. Havnevik,  Tanzania: The Limits to Development from Above  (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1993), 179–262. The essence of Nyerere’s African, “humanist” socialism and his view of development are elaborated in his written works, notably  The Arusha Declaration and TANU’s Policy on Socialism and Self-Reliance  (Dar es Salaam: TANU Publicity Section, 1967);  Man and Development  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974); and  Freedom and Development  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).

80. Seminar on the Study of New Ways and Means for Promoting Human Rights with Special Attention to the Problems and Needs of Africa, Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, October 23–November 5, 1973, ST/TAO/HR/48, para. 29.

81. Ibid., para. 52.

83. Iran pushed its vision for human rights energetically from 1977 onward, likely in response to Carter’s emerging human rights agenda. Another of the shah’s UN representatives, Fereydoun Hoveyda, developed many of the same arguments in a May 1977 opinion piece: “What, for instance, is the meaning of freedom of speech in a society where everything is sadly lacking, with no hope in sight for betterment, or freedom of speech where everybody is illiterate? The United Nations has produced two covenants on human rights—one concerning economic and social rights, the other, political and civil rights. From the viewpoint of developing countries, the most urgent is the first one because without carrying out the basic needs of human beings, all other rights are mere illusion. In short, it is not reasonable to expect a complete realization of all the rights immediately and everywhere.” See Hoveyda, “Not All Clocks for Human Rights Are the Same,”  New York Times , May 18, 1977. By contrast, the voluminous UN report on the realization of economic and social rights, prepared by the special rapporteur from Iran, Manouchehr Ganji, was highly sophisticated in its treatment of the relationship between civil and political rights, social rights, development, modernization, and global economic factors. See Ganji,  The Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Problems, Policies, Progress  (United Nations, 1975).

84. The key ideas of the NIEO are set out in its flagship declarations, the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, December 12, 1974, General Assembly Res. 3281 (XXIX); and the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, May 1, 1974, General Assembly Res. 3201.

85. Julius Nyerere, “Third World Negotiating Strategy,”  Third World Quarterly  1, no. 2 (1979): 20–23.

86. Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 1269th meeting, February 22, 1974, E/CN.4/SR.1269, 28–31.

87. Declaration on the Right to Development, December 4, 1986, General Assembly Res. 41/128, available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r128.htm (accessed February 3, 2012).

88. For a broad survey of this process in the British empire, see Charles O. H. Parkinson,  Bills of Rights and Decolonization  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

89. In his work on French West Africa, Frederick Cooper demonstrates that the pursuit of genuine “equivalence” constituted a potent alternative to the standard repertoire of anticolonial nationalism. Cooper also argues persuasively that the French government “could not face the burden of an empire of citizens” with equality of social rights and living standards. See  Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History  (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 156, 177, 216, 233.

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Human Rights from a Third World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law

• Description
• Contributors

Globalization, interdisciplinarity, and the critique of the Eurocentric canon are transforming the theory and practice of human rights. This collection takes up the point of view of the colonized in order to unsettle and supplement the conventional understanding of human rights. Putting together insights coming from Decolonial Thinking, the Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL), Radical Black Theory and Subaltern Studies, the authors construct a new history and theory of human rights, and a more comprehensive understanding of international human rights law in the background of modern colonialism and the struggle for global justice. An exercise of dialogical and interdisciplinary thinking, this collection of articles by leading scholars puts into conversation important areas of research on human rights, namely philosophy or theory of human rights, history, and constitutional and international law. This book combines critical consciousness and moral sensibility, and offers methods of interpretation or hermeneutical strategies to advance the project of decolonizing human rights, a veritable tool-box to create new Third-World discourses of human rights.

José-Manuel Barreto, PhD, is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Unit for Global Justice, Goldsmiths College, University of London. His research gravitates around the history and theory of human rights in the context of modern imperialism and colonial genocide, and one of his interests is to retrieve the Third-World tradition of human rights. He has published On Rights, Duties and Guarantees (Colombian Commission of Jurists, 1998) and his writing has appeared in works such as Critical Legal Theory (Routledge, 2011) and Critical International Law: Post-Realism, Post-Colonialism, and Transnationalism (Oxford University Press, 2012).

“The history of human rights is a subject that has been receiving a great deal of attention. Nevertheless, what is curious about some of this work is its provincial approach to an inherently cosmopolitan subject matter. This superb collection helps address the resulting problem, with outstanding essays that provide different accounts of the complex roles of the Third World and Third World thinkers in the history and development of international human rights law. It is an indispensable volume for anyone seeking to develop a global vision of international human rights law.” – Professor Tony Anghie, University of Utah.

“An extraordinarily rich and compendious volume, a kind of post-colonial ‘book of hours’ for human rights. The contributors’ diverse critical perspectives – historical, philosophical, cultural, aesthetic, literary as well as juridical – together accomplish a polychromatic retelling of human rights history and reimagining of human rights discourse, and each contribution is a textured illumination in its own right.” - Dr Scott Newton, SOAS, University of London

“For too long human rights have arguably remained ambivalent instruments for the prevention and denunciation of genocides, violence and abuses to legal subjects, particularly at the heart of Western societies, while also becoming efficient tools in advancing cultural imposition and delegitimizing progressive struggles with alternative grammars of democracy. Instead of naively celebrating human rights, or simply dismissing them as purely European constructs or as liberal tools to prevent radical change, the contributors in this volume seek to identify alternative genealogies of and sources for thinking and rethinking human rights, while also providing new critical insights into standard human rights discourse. Here, we see a picture of what [it] is to think of human rights from the Third World, including the Third World in the North. The book clarifies and potently restates the imperative of decolonizing human rights discourse, and in the process making it more useful for the urgent social struggles in the Third World and beyond. A must read for everyone interested in human rights, their legacy, and their relevance for today.” - Professor Nelson Maldonado-Torres, University of California, Berkeley.

“These essays demonstrate that from the earliest expressions of humanism in the Sixteenth century, by dissidents such as Bartolomé de las Casas, to contemporary Southern authors such as Upendra Baxi, the discourse of human rights has always been a locus of popular struggle against oppression by privileged elites.” - Professor Morton Emanuel Winston, The College of New Jersey.

Upendra Baxi

Anthony Bogues

Sabine Broeck

Enrique Dussel

Vincent Lloyd

Eduardo Mendieta

Walter Mignolo

Glenn Mitoma

William Twining

Susan Waltz

Martin Woessner

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ISBN: 1-4438-4058-0

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-4058-3

Release Date: 28th March 2013

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Human Rights from a Third-World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law

""This book takes up the point of view of the colonized in order to unsettle and supplement the conventional understanding of human rights. Putting together insights coming from Decolonial Thinking, TWAIL, Radical Black Theory and Subaltern Studies, the book constructs a new history and theory of human rights, and a more comprehensive understanding of international human rights law in the background of modern colonialism and the struggle for global justice. An exercise of dialogical and interdisciplinary thinking, this collection of articles puts into conversation important areas of research on human rights, namely theory of human rights, history, and international law. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Decolonial Strategies and Dialogue in the Human Rights Field José-Manuel Barreto …………………………………………………… Part I: Critique of the Theory of Human Rights 1. Who Speaks for the “Human” in Human Rights? Walter Mignolo ………………………………………………… 2. Provincializing Human Rights? The Heideggerian Legacy from Charles Malik to Dipesh Chakrabarty Martin Woessner ……………………………………………….. 3. The Legacy of Slavery: White Humanities and its Subject Sabine Broeck …………………………………………………… 4. “Moral Optics”: Biopolitics, Torture and the Imperial Gaze of War Photography Eduardo Mendieta ……………………………………………… Part II: Signposts for an Alternative History of Human Rights 5. Imperialism and Decolonization as Scenarios of Human Rights History José-Manuel Barreto …………………………………………… 6. Las Casas, Vitoria and Suárez, 1514-1617 Enrique Dussel ………………………………………………… 7. The Haitian Revolution and the Making of Freedom in Modernity Anthony Bogues ……………………………………………… 8. Beyond Love and Justice: Natural Law in Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community Vincent Lloyd …………………………………………………… 9. Human Rights, Southern Voices: Yash Ghai and Upendra Baxi William Twining ……………………………………………… Part III: Decolonizing Constitutional and International Human Rights Law 10. The Rule of Law in India Upendra Baxi …………………………………………………… 11. Eddie Mabo and Namibia: Land Reform and Precolonial Land Rights Nico Horn ……………………………………………………… 12. Universalizing Human Rights: The Role of Small States in the Construction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Susan Waltz ……………………………………………………… 13. Forging a Global Culture of Human Rights: Origins and Prospects of the International Bill of Rights Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat ………………………………………… 14. Mode d’assujetissement: Charles Malik, Carlos Romulo and the Emergence of the United Nations Human Rights Regime Glenn Mitoma …………………………………………………… LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat is Juanita and Joseph Leff Professor and Chair of Political Science at Purchase College, State University of New York. She is the author of Democracy and Human Rights in Developing Countries (iUniverse, 2003), Human Rights Worldwide: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2006) and Insan Haklarý ve Demokrasi Üzerine Tezler (Boyut Yayýnlarý, 2007). José-Manuel Barreto is Visiting Fellow, Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author of De los Derechos, las Garantías y los Deberes (with Libardo Sarmiento, Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, 1998). His works have appeared in collections such as Critical Legal Theory (Routledge, 2011) and Critical International Law: Post-Realism, Post-Colonialism, and Transnationalism (Oxford University Press, 2012). Upendra Baxi held the position of Professor of Law at the University of Delhi and served as Professor of Law in Development, University of Warwick. His publications include The Future of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Human Rights in a Posthuman World: Critical Essays (Oxford University Press, 2007). Anthony Bogues is Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Freedom: The Early Political Thought of C.L.R. James (Pluto, 1997), Black Heretics and Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals (Routledge, 2003) and Empire of Liberty: Power, Freedom, and Desire (University Press of New England, 2010). Sabine Broeck is Professor of American Studies at the University of Bremen. She is the author of White Amnesia - Black Memory? Women's Writing and History (Peter Lang, 1999) and Der entkolonisierte Koerper. Die Protagonistin in der afro-amerikanischen weiblichen Erzähltradition der 30er bis 80er Jahre (Campus, 1988). She is currently President of the International Collegium for African-American Research (CAAR). Enrique Dussel is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico. His publications include Ethics of Liberation in the age of Globalization and Exclusion (Duke University Press, 2012), Twenty Theses on Politics (Duke University Press, 2008) and The Invention of the Americas. Eclipse of "the Other" and the Myth of Modernity (Continuum, 1995). Nico Horn is Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Namibia. He is the author of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Namibia (with A Bösl, MacMillan 2008) and The Human Face in the Globalizing World, Ten Years of Human Rights Education (with M.O. Hinz and C. Mchombu, University of Namibia, 2002). Vincent Lloyd is Assistant Professor of Religion, Syracuse University. He is the author of The Problem with Grace: Reconfiguring Political Theology (Stanford University Press, 2011) and Law and Transcendence: On the Unfinished Project of Gillian Rose (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York. He is the author of Global Fragments: Latinamericanism, Globalizations, and Critical Theory (SUNY Press, 2007) and Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy: Karl-Otto Apel's Semiotics and Discourse Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). Walter Mignolo is William Wannamaker Professor of Literature, Duke University. His publications include The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Duke University Press, 2012), The Idea of Latin America (Blackwell, 2005) and Local Histories/Global Designs (Princeton University Press, 2000). Glenn Mitoma is Assistant Professor, Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut. His research interests include the history and contemporary working of universal human rights as discourse, structure, and practices, and is currently focused on developing a “human rights biography” of Charles H. Malik. William Twinning is Emeritus Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London. His publications include General Jurisprudence: Understanding Law from a Global Perspective, (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and How to Do Things With Rules (with David Miers, CUP, 2010). He is the editor of Human Rights: Southern Voices (CUP, 2009). Susan Waltz is Professor of International Relations and Public Policy, University of Michigan. She has written “Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States.” (Human Rights Quarterly, 2004) and “Reclaiming and Rebuilding the History of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Third World Quarterly, 2002. She currently sits on the Board of Amnesty International-USA. Martin Woessner is Assistant Professor of History & Society, The City College of New York's Center for Worker Education (CUNY). He is the author of Heidegger in America (Cambridge University Press, 2011). ""

Related Papers

Upendra Baxi

Reza Afshari

Critical Perspectives on Human Rights

Jose-Manuel Barreto

This chapter questions the reliability and universality of the Western historiography of human rights, and argues in favour of the legitimacy of Third-World histories elaborated in the context of modern colonialism. The method will be that of decolonial thinking, which is understood as an argumentative strategy or a dialectics of criticising Eurocentrism, retrieving Third-World perspectives, and setting a dialogue between the two. Thus, this chapter begins by making a survey and a critique of histories of human rights elaborated from the perspective of the West and are hegemonic still today, with special attention to recent US-centric interpretations (Moyn). It then puts forward some ideas about how a history of human rights can be written from the perspective of the Third World, or the South. This ends by setting up a dialogue between these two different historiographies.

The Making of International Human Rights

Steven Jensen

Maria Herrera Sobek

Ronald Niezen

Balakrishnan Rajagopal

Vitus Ozoke

Voluminous scholarship that has followed ever since the advent of human rights has failed to sufficiently undertake a non-essentialist investigation of this seemingly attractive development of human history and progress. Rather than pursue critical tensions inherent in the obvious ambiguities of human rights, both as an ideology and a practice, scholarship has been devoted to the categorization of the colonizer and the colonized without probing the contradictions that beset each category. This essay identifies the otherness of the indigenous cultures in the calculation of the paternalistic, “superior” West as a problem that not only needs a critical probe, but also deserves to be the starting point of a more historically nuanced human rights discourse. It looks at the paradoxes of a human rights regime which touts common, equal, and universal humanity, while at the same time building and maintaining measures of legal and practical differences. As a major theme of this essay, the dif...

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The Third World: Concept and Controversy Essay

Africa, caribbean, south america, asia, and those in central america in the third world.

The Third World, which is popularly referred to the countries of the south or developing countries, consists of many states in Africa, Caribbean, South America, Asia, and those in Central America. These countries face a number of challenges, which have reduced their socio-economic and political development.

Even though scholars attribute these challenges to colonialism, the existing state of affairs does not favor the developing countries as far as development is concerned. However, some countries are trying to revitalize their economies including the countries of East Asia such as South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Even though some countries are trying to develop economically, political instabilities and western influence are still the main problems facing them. In some parts of the third world, religion is inseparable with the state meaning that religious leaders are still the political leaders. This is true in the Middle East and other countries that practice Islam.

The works of Handelman prove that some religions are antithetical to democracy meaning that they are incompatible. In Latin America, the above scholar noted that the Catholic could no longer exercise control over the society on matters related to religion and reproductive health. Initially, the Catholic Church was against the reproductive rights of women, who advocated free abortion and the provision of contraceptives.

In India, the case was the same because the government ameliorated the injustices of the caste system by suggesting that people were different in society. This contravenes the ideals of democracy, which state that an individual has the right to do as he or she desires, as long as he or she does not interfere with the rights of other people.

In Syria, Egypt, and Turkey, the government insisted that religion could not be applied in making political decisions because it affected the rights and the freedom of many people. Therefore, it was agreed in the above countries that religion would be excluded from the political system because it is antithetical to democracy.

Theoretically, scholars hold different views as regards to the role of religion in developing. For modernization theorists, religion plays a negative role while dependency scholars do not mention anything regarding the role of religion in development.

In the third world, traditional religions are actually the enemies of development because they do not permit their members to engage in some of the developmental programs that would perhaps improve their living standards. In some countries, such as Iran during the revolutionary era, modernization failed to take place mainly because of the strong religious practices that opposed western developmental policies.

Handelman is of the view that religion is an ever-present element in the world of politics because the two are closely related. In fact, religious leaders use technology, which is an element of modernization, to disseminate information and preach hate speech to other members of society. In the Middle East, technology has contributed in the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, which is the major enemy of democracy (Handelman 34).

Modernization is a political theory that suggests that countries of the south or the third world should simply emulate the behavior of the west for them to develop. In fact, the theory suggests that the third world will never develop if it does not adopt the western policies. These policies include the opening up of the economy, adoption of democracy, the rule of law, respect of the human rights, and eradication of corruption.

This means that the third world should allow people to practice whatever they desire for them to develop. This view is greatly opposed because it goes against the culture of the African people. Regarding democracy, the government should never interfere with the rights of the individual meaning that people have the right to wage demonstrations, demand for equal pay, gender equality, and the observance of the international labor laws (Griffiths 7).

Moreover, private ownership of property should be respected given the fact that it encourages investment. Modernization suggests that the third world should privatize all public corporations and allow the market to operate in accordance with its internal logics.

Many leaders and scholars of the third world observe that western policies will never work perfectly in other environments because the contexts differ. For instance, African Culture does not allow an individual to exercise some rights, such as the right to choose sexual orientation, because it goes against the traditionally recognized rules.

After the demise of colonialism

After the demise of colonialism, many analysts and policy makers in the third world and the developed world were faced with one major challenge that was related to development. The third world failed to take off economically yet it had adequate resources and the work force. Scholars gave a number of suggestions, with one of the options being emulating the west, which had already taken off economically and politically.

Two schools of thoughts emerged in early 1960s to explain the way in which the third world would take off economically. One of the schools of thought was referred to as the modernization, which was mainly associated with the western philosophers. Dependency was another school, which offered a radical view regarding development. Dependency school was supported by scholars from the third world, who opposed the views of the western philosophers.

Regarding cultural values, modernization theory was very optimistic because it posited that adoption of western culture would definitely change the state of affairs in the third world. In fact, many countries of the third world were forced to abandon their traditional cultures and adopt the western culture, which was believed to be compatible with development.

Such scholars argued that western culture had already achieved a lot in the west hence it was a model for development. The works of various sociologists, including Talcott Parsons and Max Weber were utilized extensively in convincing the third world that its culture was traditional while that of the developed world was modern.

In this regard, traditional culture was perceived to be irrational and unscientific meaning that it could not achieve developmental goals. Developing countries were required to come up with complex political and economic institutions, which would complement the western culture.

On their part, dependency scholars were of the view that western developmental programs would not flourish in the third world because of the differences in contexts. Dependency theory argued that developed countries were able to take off economically because there was no competition globally. The third world faces stiff competition from industrialized states such as Japan and the United States.

The issue of technology was also mentioned as one of the problems that affect the developing countries (Handelman 22). Developing countries depend on the western democracies for technology meaning that they will never take off without involving other actors in their plans.

Works Cited

Handelman, Howard. The challenge of third world development . Upper Saddle River: Pearson education, 2011. Print.

Griffiths, Robert. Annual Editions Developing World, 12/13 . 22nd ed. Dubuque: Mcgraw-hill/Dushkin, 2011. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2020, March 12). The Third World: Concept and Controversy. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-third-world-countries/

"The Third World: Concept and Controversy." IvyPanda , 12 Mar. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/the-third-world-countries/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'The Third World: Concept and Controversy'. 12 March.

IvyPanda . 2020. "The Third World: Concept and Controversy." March 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-third-world-countries/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Third World: Concept and Controversy." March 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-third-world-countries/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Third World: Concept and Controversy." March 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-third-world-countries/.

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Essay on Human Rights: Samples in 500 and 1500

• Updated on  
• Dec 9, 2023

Essay writing is an integral part of the school curriculum and various academic and competitive exams like IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. It is designed to test your command of the English language and how well you can gather your thoughts and present them in a structure with a flow. To master your ability to write an essay, you must read as much as possible and practise on any given topic. This blog brings you a detailed guide on how to write an essay on Human Rights , with useful essay samples on Human rights.

This Blog Includes:

The basic human rights, 200 words essay on human rights, 500 words essay on human rights, 500+ words essay on human rights in india, 1500 words essay on human rights, importance of human rights, essay on human rights pdf.

Also Read: List of Human Rights Courses

Also Read: MSc Human Rights

Also Read: 1-Minute Speech on Human Rights for Students

What are Human Rights

Human rights mark everyone as free and equal, irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion and nationality. The United Nations adopted human rights in light of the atrocities people faced during the Second World War. On the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Its adoption led to the recognition of human rights as the foundation for freedom, justice and peace for every individual. Although it’s not legally binding, most nations have incorporated these human rights into their constitutions and domestic legal frameworks. Human rights safeguard us from discrimination and guarantee that our most basic needs are protected.

Did you know that the 10th of December is celebrated as Human Rights Day ?

Before we move on to the essays on human rights, let’s check out the basics of what they are.

Also Read: What are Human Rights?

Also Read: 7 Impactful Human Rights Movies Everyone Must Watch!

Here is a 200-word short sample essay on basic Human Rights.

Human rights are a set of rights given to every human being regardless of their gender, caste, creed, religion, nation, location or economic status. These are said to be moral principles that illustrate certain standards of human behaviour. Protected by law , these rights are applicable everywhere and at any time. Basic human rights include the right to life, right to a fair trial, right to remedy by a competent tribunal, right to liberty and personal security, right to own property, right to education, right of peaceful assembly and association, right to marriage and family, right to nationality and freedom to change it, freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, freedom from slavery, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of movement, right of opinion and information, right to adequate living standard and freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence.

Also Read: Law Courses

Check out this 500-word long essay on Human Rights.

Every person has dignity and value. One of the ways that we recognise the fundamental worth of every person is by acknowledging and respecting their human rights. Human rights are a set of principles concerned with equality and fairness. They recognise our freedom to make choices about our lives and develop our potential as human beings. They are about living a life free from fear, harassment or discrimination.

Human rights can broadly be defined as the basic rights that people worldwide have agreed are essential. These include the right to life, the right to a fair trial, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to health, education and an adequate standard of living. These human rights are the same for all people everywhere – men and women, young and old, rich and poor, regardless of our background, where we live, what we think or believe. This basic property is what makes human rights’ universal’.

Human rights connect us all through a shared set of rights and responsibilities. People’s ability to enjoy their human rights depends on other people respecting those rights. This means that human rights involve responsibility and duties towards other people and the community. Individuals have a responsibility to ensure that they exercise their rights with consideration for the rights of others. For example, when someone uses their right to freedom of speech, they should do so without interfering with someone else’s right to privacy.

Governments have a particular responsibility to ensure that people can enjoy their rights. They must establish and maintain laws and services that enable people to enjoy a life in which their rights are respected and protected. For example, the right to education says that everyone is entitled to a good education. Therefore, governments must provide good quality education facilities and services to their people. If the government fails to respect or protect their basic human rights, people can take it into account.

Values of tolerance, equality and respect can help reduce friction within society. Putting human rights ideas into practice can help us create the kind of society we want to live in. There has been tremendous growth in how we think about and apply human rights ideas in recent decades. This growth has had many positive results – knowledge about human rights can empower individuals and offer solutions for specific problems.

Human rights are an important part of how people interact with others at all levels of society – in the family, the community, school, workplace, politics and international relations. Therefore, people everywhere must strive to understand what human rights are. When people better understand human rights, it is easier for them to promote justice and the well-being of society. 

Also Read: Important Articles in Indian Constitution

Here is a human rights essay focused on India.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. It has been rightly proclaimed in the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Created with certain unalienable rights….” Similarly, the Indian Constitution has ensured and enshrined Fundamental rights for all citizens irrespective of caste, creed, religion, colour, sex or nationality. These basic rights, commonly known as human rights, are recognised the world over as basic rights with which every individual is born.

In recognition of human rights, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made on the 10th of December, 1948. This declaration is the basic instrument of human rights. Even though this declaration has no legal bindings and authority, it forms the basis of all laws on human rights. The necessity of formulating laws to protect human rights is now being felt all over the world. According to social thinkers, the issue of human rights became very important after World War II concluded. It is important for social stability both at the national and international levels. Wherever there is a breach of human rights, there is conflict at one level or the other.

Given the increasing importance of the subject, it becomes necessary that educational institutions recognise the subject of human rights as an independent discipline. The course contents and curriculum of the discipline of human rights may vary according to the nature and circumstances of a particular institution. Still, generally, it should include the rights of a child, rights of minorities, rights of the needy and the disabled, right to live, convention on women, trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation etc.

Since the formation of the United Nations , the promotion and protection of human rights have been its main focus. The United Nations has created a wide range of mechanisms for monitoring human rights violations. The conventional mechanisms include treaties and organisations, U.N. special reporters, representatives and experts and working groups. Asian countries like China argue in favour of collective rights. According to Chinese thinkers, European countries lay stress upon individual rights and values while Asian countries esteem collective rights and obligations to the family and society as a whole.

With the freedom movement the world over after World War II, the end of colonisation also ended the policy of apartheid and thereby the most aggressive violation of human rights. With the spread of education, women are asserting their rights. Women’s movements play an important role in spreading the message of human rights. They are fighting for their rights and supporting the struggle for human rights of other weaker and deprived sections like bonded labour, child labour, landless labour, unemployed persons, Dalits and elderly people.

Unfortunately, violation of human rights continues in most parts of the world. Ethnic cleansing and genocide can still be seen in several parts of the world. Large sections of the world population are deprived of the necessities of life i.e. food, shelter and security of life. Right to minimum basic needs viz. Work, health care, education and shelter are denied to them. These deprivations amount to the negation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Also Read: Human Rights Courses

Check out this detailed 1500-word essay on human rights.

The human right to live and exist, the right to equality, including equality before the law, non-discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment, the right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association, movement, residence, the right to practice any profession or occupation, the right against exploitation, prohibiting all forms of forced labour, child labour and trafficking in human beings, the right to freedom of conscience, practice and propagation of religion and the right to legal remedies for enforcement of the above are basic human rights. These rights and freedoms are the very foundations of democracy.

Obviously, in a democracy, the people enjoy the maximum number of freedoms and rights. Besides these are political rights, which include the right to contest an election and vote freely for a candidate of one’s choice. Human rights are a benchmark of a developed and civilised society. But rights cannot exist in a vacuum. They have their corresponding duties. Rights and duties are the two aspects of the same coin.

Liberty never means license. Rights presuppose the rule of law, where everyone in the society follows a code of conduct and behaviour for the good of all. It is the sense of duty and tolerance that gives meaning to rights. Rights have their basis in the ‘live and let live’ principle. For example, my right to speech and expression involves my duty to allow others to enjoy the same freedom of speech and expression. Rights and duties are inextricably interlinked and interdependent. A perfect balance is to be maintained between the two. Whenever there is an imbalance, there is chaos.

A sense of tolerance, propriety and adjustment is a must to enjoy rights and freedom. Human life sans basic freedom and rights is meaningless. Freedom is the most precious possession without which life would become intolerable, a mere abject and slavish existence. In this context, Milton’s famous and oft-quoted lines from his Paradise Lost come to mind: “To reign is worth ambition though in hell/Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”

However, liberty cannot survive without its corresponding obligations and duties. An individual is a part of society in which he enjoys certain rights and freedom only because of the fulfilment of certain duties and obligations towards others. Thus, freedom is based on mutual respect’s rights. A fine balance must be maintained between the two, or there will be anarchy and bloodshed. Therefore, human rights can best be preserved and protected in a society steeped in morality, discipline and social order.

Violation of human rights is most common in totalitarian and despotic states. In the theocratic states, there is much persecution, and violation in the name of religion and the minorities suffer the most. Even in democracies, there is widespread violation and infringement of human rights and freedom. The women, children and the weaker sections of society are victims of these transgressions and violence.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights’ main concern is to protect and promote human rights and freedom in the world’s nations. In its various sessions held from time to time in Geneva, it adopts various measures to encourage worldwide observations of these basic human rights and freedom. It calls on its member states to furnish information regarding measures that comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whenever there is a complaint of a violation of these rights. In addition, it reviews human rights situations in various countries and initiates remedial measures when required.

The U.N. Commission was much concerned and dismayed at the apartheid being practised in South Africa till recently. The Secretary-General then declared, “The United Nations cannot tolerate apartheid. It is a legalised system of racial discrimination, violating the most basic human rights in South Africa. It contradicts the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter. That is why over the last forty years, my predecessors and I have urged the Government of South Africa to dismantle it.”

Now, although apartheid is no longer practised in that country, other forms of apartheid are being blatantly practised worldwide. For example, sex apartheid is most rampant. Women are subject to abuse and exploitation. They are not treated equally and get less pay than their male counterparts for the same jobs. In employment, promotions, possession of property etc., they are most discriminated against. Similarly, the rights of children are not observed properly. They are forced to work hard in very dangerous situations, sexually assaulted and exploited, sold and bonded for labour.

The Commission found that religious persecution, torture, summary executions without judicial trials, intolerance, slavery-like practices, kidnapping, political disappearance, etc., are being practised even in the so-called advanced countries and societies. The continued acts of extreme violence, terrorism and extremism in various parts of the world like Pakistan, India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Somalia, Algeria, Lebanon, Chile, China, and Myanmar, etc., by the governments, terrorists, religious fundamentalists, and mafia outfits, etc., is a matter of grave concern for the entire human race.

Violation of freedom and rights by terrorist groups backed by states is one of the most difficult problems society faces. For example, Pakistan has been openly collaborating with various terrorist groups, indulging in extreme violence in India and other countries. In this regard the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva adopted a significant resolution, which was co-sponsored by India, focusing on gross violation of human rights perpetrated by state-backed terrorist groups.

The resolution expressed its solidarity with the victims of terrorism and proposed that a U.N. Fund for victims of terrorism be established soon. The Indian delegation recalled that according to the Vienna Declaration, terrorism is nothing but the destruction of human rights. It shows total disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. The delegation further argued that terrorism cannot be treated as a mere crime because it is systematic and widespread in its killing of civilians.

Violation of human rights, whether by states, terrorists, separatist groups, armed fundamentalists or extremists, is condemnable. Regardless of the motivation, such acts should be condemned categorically in all forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever they are committed, as acts of aggression aimed at destroying human rights, fundamental freedom and democracy. The Indian delegation also underlined concerns about the growing connection between terrorist groups and the consequent commission of serious crimes. These include rape, torture, arson, looting, murder, kidnappings, blasts, and extortion, etc.

Violation of human rights and freedom gives rise to alienation, dissatisfaction, frustration and acts of terrorism. Governments run by ambitious and self-seeking people often use repressive measures and find violence and terror an effective means of control. However, state terrorism, violence, and human freedom transgressions are very dangerous strategies. This has been the background of all revolutions in the world. Whenever there is systematic and widespread state persecution and violation of human rights, rebellion and revolution have taken place. The French, American, Russian and Chinese Revolutions are glowing examples of human history.

The first war of India’s Independence in 1857 resulted from long and systematic oppression of the Indian masses. The rapidly increasing discontent, frustration and alienation with British rule gave rise to strong national feelings and demand for political privileges and rights. Ultimately the Indian people, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, made the British leave India, setting the country free and independent.

Human rights and freedom ought to be preserved at all costs. Their curtailment degrades human life. The political needs of a country may reshape Human rights, but they should not be completely distorted. Tyranny, regimentation, etc., are inimical of humanity and should be resisted effectively and united. The sanctity of human values, freedom and rights must be preserved and protected. Human Rights Commissions should be established in all countries to take care of human freedom and rights. In cases of violation of human rights, affected individuals should be properly compensated, and it should be ensured that these do not take place in future.

These commissions can become effective instruments in percolating the sensitivity to human rights down to the lowest levels of governments and administrations. The formation of the National Human Rights Commission in October 1993 in India is commendable and should be followed by other countries.

Also Read: Law Courses in India

Human rights are of utmost importance to seek basic equality and human dignity. Human rights ensure that the basic needs of every human are met. They protect vulnerable groups from discrimination and abuse, allow people to stand up for themselves, and follow any religion without fear and give them the freedom to express their thoughts freely. In addition, they grant people access to basic education and equal work opportunities. Thus implementing these rights is crucial to ensure freedom, peace and safety.

Human Rights Day is annually celebrated on the 10th of December.

Human Rights Day is celebrated to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UNGA in 1948.

Some of the common Human Rights are the right to life and liberty, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom from slavery and torture and the right to work and education.

We hope our sample essays on Human Rights have given you some great ideas. For more information on such interesting blogs, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

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7 Interface between the Third Generation Human Rights and Good Governance in a Globalized World

• Published: December 2011
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This chapter examines ‘third generation human rights’—the obligation of the State to provide certain composite things to the individual. It contrasts first and second generation human rights as both ‘negative’ human rights (freedom from government action) and civil liberties with third generation human rights also known as ‘solidarity’ rights, including right to a clean environment, right to peace, right to education, and right to healthcare. Terming third generation human rights like development, education, health, and food as community oriented, it traces the evolution of the said terminology to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and provides a clear linkage to the subsequent international instruments that have spoken about the said rights including the Millennium Goals Declaration. The chapter also examines the uncertainties surrounding these rights including, the ownership, claimants, and scope of redress.

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Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

• Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

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