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Abstract
The end of World War II, and the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, unleashed great expectations of a brave new world, in which the promotion and protection of human rights would become the central organising principle of international relations. This article examines the long struggle that African countries, joined by other developing countries, have waged at the UN for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and for the right to development to be recognised as legally enforceable and universal. To date, however, the right to development has not entered the practical realm of planning and implementation at the national and international levels. The article assesses the internal and external factors that have prevented countries in the Global South from fulfilling the rights of their citizens to development and from moving the agenda forward.
Notes
1. Plesch and Weiss, Wartime Origins.
2. Cheru “Development in Africa.”
3. Geiss, The Pan-African Movement.
4. Shepperson and Drake, “The Fifth Pan-African Conference.”
5. Brinkley and Facey-Crowther, The Atlantic Charter; and Stone, “Peace Planning and the Atlantic Charter.”
6. Louis, “American Anti-colonialism.”
7. Adelman, The Right to Development; and Udombana, “The Third World and the Right to Development.”
8. The USA voted against the declaration; eight other states, including the UK, abstained.
9. Willets, The Non-Aligned Movement; Morphet, “Multilateralism and Non-Aligned Movement.”
10. See Arjun Sangupta, “First Report of the Independent Expert on the Right to Development,” E/CN.4/1999/WG.18/2, 1999.
11. De Silva, “The Non-Aligned Movement.”
12. Kirchmeier, The Right to Development, 11–15.
13. Statement by Lino J. Piedra, member of the US delegation, March 22, 2005, http://www.humanrights-usa.net/2005/0322Item7.htm.
14. Martin, African Political Thought; Nkrumah, Africa must Unite; and Mkandawire, “From the National Question,” 6.
15. Zeleza, “The Historic and Humanistic Agenda.”
16. Gifford and Louis, The Transfer of Power.
17. Dumont, False Start in Africa.
18. Mkandawire, “From the National Question.”
19. Ake, “The Unique Case of African Democracy.”
20. Chabal, Political Domination in Africa.
21. Ibid.
22. Ake, Democracy and Development in Africa, 42.
23. Dumont, False Start in Africa; and Laidi, The Super-powers and Africa.
24. Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa.
25. Cheru, “The Silent Revolution.”
26. George, The Debt Boomerang.
27. Righter, Utopia Lost, 211–244; and Williams, International Economic Organizations, 188–198.
28. Gill and Cheru, “Structural Adjustment and the G-7 Nexus.”
29. Gibbon et al., Authoritarianism, Democracy and Adjustment; Mkandawire, “Adjustment, Political Conditionality and Democracy”; and Cheru, “Playing Games with African Lives.”
30. Beckman, “Empowerment or Repression?”
31. Gore, “The Rise and Fall of the Washington Consensus.”
32. Mkandawire, “Adjustment, Political Conditionality, and Democratization.”
33. Jolly et al., UN Ideas that changed the World.
34. United Nations, “Report of the World Summit on Social Development.”
35. This interagency focus has been optimised by the focus on sustainable human development since the publication of the UNDP’s annual Human Development Report starting in 1990.
36. Cheru and Rawkins, Global, Inter-regional and Regional Programmes.
37. OECD DAC, Shaping the 21st Century.
38. Bradford, Jr., “Toward 2015.”
39. Government of Canada, “G8 Africa Action Plan,” Kananaskis Summit, 2002.
40. Cheru, “Playing Games with African Lives.”
41. Cheru and Bradford, The Millennium Development Goals.
42. Ibid.
43. UNECA et al., MDG Report 2015.
44. United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, 6.
45. See “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/1, September 25, 2015, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.
46. UNECA et al., MDG Report 2015.
47. Ake, Democracy and Development in Africa; UNECA, African Governance Report III; and Cheru, “Democracy and People Power in Africa.”
48. UNCTAD, The Least Developed Countries Report 2009.
49. Edigheji, “The African State and Socio-economic Development”; and Mkandawire, “Thinking about Developmental States.”
50. UNECA, Economic Report of Africa 2011.
51. Edigheji, “The African State and Socio-economic Development”; and Mkandawire, “Thinking about Developmental States.”
52. Sen, Development as Freedom.
53. Mkandawire and Soludo, Our Continent, Our Future.
54. Khor, Rethinking Globalization, 37.