The right to development

This chapter discusses international development and the social, economic and cultural rights most closely associated with it. It critical assesses the contrasting approaches of two development agendas that emerged in the 1980s: (a) the idea of human development as the enhancement of human rights, civil liberties and individual freedoms as encapsulated in the United Nations’ Human Development Report (UNDP, 2000) and economist Amartya Sen’s Development As Freedom (1999); and (b) neoliberalism’s determination that human development, economic and social rights would directly result from the unfettered activities of the market. The chapter discusses the correlation between neoliberalism, austerity and a weakening of social and economic safeguards and development practice. It concludes by asking if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can help to push back the neoliberal economic model that undermines rights and impedes development.