A Rights-Based Approach to Development: Prospects and Problems

Abstract

International development assistance, humanitarian relief and human rights interventions, like many other noble human endeavours are inherently political and liable to have unexpected and/or unintended, positive or negative outcomes. Since Mary Anderson’s seminal work Do No Harm (Lynne Rienner, 1999) highlighted the inadvertent and harmful effects of relief and development assistance in conflict zones, there has been greater consciousness amongst individual aid workers and relief and development agencies of the socioeconomic and political impacts of their presence and interventions in these environments. These realizations have in turn contributed to the emergence of conflict-sensitive approaches, and the use of conflict analysis in the formulation and implementation of projects and programmes located in conflict environments. Peter Uvin painstakingly articulates an emerging and potentially progressive approach to the international practice of development in his groundbreaking book, Human Rights and Development. It is an inspiring attempt to integrate human rights values within international development practice. Although other scholars have challenged the false dichotomy that separates the discourses and practices of human rights from mainstream development, Uvin’s analysis of the challenges and implications of integrating human rights values and development practice is a significant and seminal contribution. The core questions considered in Human Rights and Development are: how could development assistance be re-conceptualized in order to better integrate and uphold human rights; what changes need to be made in development practice; and what are the probable implications of such changes? According to