Author: Hugo Stokke
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
ISBN: 9789041105370
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description

Author: Peter R. Baehr
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004208143
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Since 1985 seven Yearbooks have appeared containing articles on recent developments with regard to human rights in developing countries. Besides topical information on current issues and trends that pertain to these countries in general, the Yearbook describes the current situation in a selected group of developing countries. The Yearbook 1994 contains national reports on Angola, China, Ghana, Honduras, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tanzania. The authors and editors of the Yearbook use a broad definition of human rights meaning not merely civil and political rights but economic, social and cultural rights as well. This broad and modern perspective on the issue is reflected in the contents of the national reports and in the thematic studies in the first part of the book, covering a wide range of issues relevant to human rights in the developing world. Among the topics covered by the thematic studies this year are the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the influence of recognized human rights standards in the national politics of Eastern Europe, the social cost of adjustment and human rights protection and an evaluation of recent positive measures taken in the sphere of North-South cooperation. The Yearbook is an initiative of human rights institutes in Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands with the purpose of reaching a wide audience interested in both human rights and development aid issues.

Author: Karin Arts
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004482490
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Human rights, democracy and governance concerns are prominent elements in the development cooperation policy of the European Community. The relations between the European Community (EC) and 71 developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) have proved to be a laboratory for developing ideas on these matters, for translating them into binding treaty norms, and for applying them in practice. The experiences gained in the ACP-EC relationship carry special value because they are the product of dialogue and joint decision-making between groups of developed and developing states. Therefore, 25 years of ACP-EC cooperation under the Lomé Convention provide a rich learning ground for anybody involved or interested in (the debate on) linking development cooperation to human rights and to human rights related concerns. This book explores the international law aspects of the subject. It first investigates the general international legal basis for linking development cooperation to human rights, democracy and good governance. Both the negative and positive ways of making such a linking (by punitive and supportive measures) are addressed. The book then delves into the evolution of Lomé treaty norms on the subject, and into the concrete human rights practices that took shape under them. It explores the contributions to and influence of both the EC and ACP states on those treaty provisions and practices. A comprehensive overview is provided of the support measures and sanctions resorted to in response to the human rights situation in ACP countries. The book assesses the overall experiences gained and presents a synthesis of factors that proved to be constraints or conducive to the efforts to integrate human rights fully into ACP-EC development cooperation. The insights gained could well inform similar efforts undertaken by others.

Author: Bahram Ghazi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004481354
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
The IMF, The World Bank Group, and the Question of Human Rights explores various issues facing international financial institutions and their obligations to adhere to human rights norms. Bahram Ghazi gets to the heart of the most important issues facing the global community today: namely, how to reconcile globalization and the activities of the World Bank and the IMF with the implementation of international human rights rules. His comprehensive work explains the relation between economy, finance, and investments and their impact on the human rights situation. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author incorporates historical, political, economic, financial, and institutional dimensions into his analysis. The IMF, The World Bank Group, and the Question of Human Rights is the fourth volume to be published in Transnational’s International Law and Development series, edited by Raj Bhala. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

Author: Sigrun Skogly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135338817
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book explores the human rights obligations of two of the largest international financial institutions,namely, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Based on international legal methodology, this book addresses these two institutions in public international law, and assesses the extent to which international law provides foundations for obligations in the field of human rights. This book analyses any possible obligations related to the effect of the two institutions own programmes and projects. The core of this analysis is focused on the two institutions international legal personality, and addresses their relationship to international law as legal subjects, rather than as a collectivity of states with international legal personality. Building on the traditional sources of international law, such as customary international law, general principles of international law and treaty law, the book concludes that the two institutions are under an obligation to respect human rights in their operations. This implies that they will break their obligations if they make the human rights situation worse as a result of their programmes or projects. It also concludes that the World Bank and the IMF are not under obligations to promote or fulfil human rights, but that they may legitimately do so if they can do it within their Articles of Agreement (the treaties establishing the institutions). The book also looks at the practical implications of the obligation to respect, which involves both substantial and procedural obligations. These obligations will, even if limited in their scope, imply that the two institutions need to include human rights checks in the planning, implementation and evaluation stages of projects and programmes. The final part of the book looks at redress possibilities in situations where either of the two institutions may be in breach of their human rights obligations.

Author: Alan G. Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313388830
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This interdisciplinary study applies human rights theory to the problems of rural poverty in the Third World. Considering the interdependence of minimal food and health security with minimal assurance of basic freedoms, political scientist Alan G. Smith traces the linkage to the need of the food-insecure to seek clientelistic dependencies on better-off neighbors—relationships that often operate to restrict freedom of choice. In contrast to conventional rural development aid, which can introduce new client dependency if pursued alone, Smith stresses the need to find other forms of aid that would provide the option of assured minimal survival while avoiding the constraints imposed by dependency. Arguing for bolstering bottom-up human rights momentum, he suggests the transfer of appropriate tools into the hands of the target group. Recipients would make use of them to enhance autonomous food-crop production, thereby making client dependency a matter of choice rather than necessity. Smith illustrates the Third World predicament of food insecurity leading to infringement of rights by drawing together empirical evidence from Bangladesh, Botswana, and Tanzania. He further argues that respect for human rights involves a duty on the part of advantaged nations to address the Third World predicament with practical measures fully consistent with human rights, and for each of these three country cases, Smith recommends direct locally specific minimalist aid. His model, its practical illustration, and recommendations should be valuable to academics and students in the fields of rural sociology, anthropology, and political science—especially those focusing on human rights, poverty, and Third World development—as well as bureaucrats and consultants in the development aid field.

Author: Bridget Anderson
Publisher: Minority Rights Group
ISBN: 1873194366
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 857

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Book Description
This publication is the first version of the World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, published in 1997. The full Directory is now available and continually updated on our website. The large majority of violent conflicts in the world today are conflicts within states, with groups polarized across ethnic and religious divides and not across borders. Ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities are often among the poorest of the poor, suffer discrimination and are frequently the victims of human rights abuses. Time and time again in the past, the United Nations system, governments and even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field of ‘conflict prevention’ have failed to promote the human rights of minorities or to take early action to promote cooperation between communities. Early action may have prevented the loss of millions of lives in many countries, ranging from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia, and from Sri Lanka to Guatemala. It is also significant that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama in 1989 and to Jose´ Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo in1996 as a result of their peaceful campaigns to promote the rights of their people. The situation of minorities is, then, a matter of major concern, and it is essential that accurate, objective and up-to-date information is made available. This Directory contributes to that process. It is difficult to assess accurately what proportion of the world’s population identify themselves as belonging to minority communities. Conservative estimates place this above 10 per cent, and some suggest that more than 20 per cent of the world’s population belongs to several thousand different minority groups and subgroups. National statistics are often skewed for political reasons, and there is no universally accepted definition of ‘minorities’. The word has different interpretations in different societies throughout the world, while the United Nations General Assembly has not sought to reach a definition beyond that implied in the title of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities adopted in December 1992. Minority Rights Group focuses its work on non-dominant ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, whether or not they are numerical minorities. The concept thus relates to any self-identified community that is marginalized, without power, unable to take decisions over its destiny and often experiencing high levels of illiteracy, under-education and overt or covert discrimination. The basic rights of such communities need protection and promotion. There is, however, a danger of generalizing about minorities and forgetting the complexity of their social composition, including the rural poor, urban migrants, older people, women and children. These groups may be considered as doubly vulnerable. What makes their situation particularly problematic is that there is often a deliberate political policy on the part of majorities and states not to give due regard to the legitimate interests of minorities, while members of minorities see their identity as central to their social and economic situation. They are often excluded from political power and decision-making in the development process, without equal opportunities to secure a better quality of life. One further danger may lie in regarding ethnicities as fixed, rather than as the potentially fluid phenomena that they often are. ‘Situational ethnicity’ does occur, and individuals and groups do modify their self-identifications depending on circumstances. Please note that the terminology in the fields of minority rights and indigenous peoples’ rights has changed over time. MRG strives to reflect these changes as well as respect the right to self-identification on the part of minorities and indigenous peoples. At the same time, after over 50 years’ work, we know that our archive is of considerable interest to activists and researchers. Therefore, we make available as much of our back catalogue as possible, while being aware that the language used may not reflect current thinking on these issues.

Author: Olav Stokke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136304274
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Foreign aid has increasingly become subject to political conditionality. In the 1980s some institutions made aid dependent upon the recipient countries' economic policy reforms. Market liberalisation was the primary instrument and objective. In the 1990s such conditionality was brought one step further; aid was now linked to political reforms, affecting recipient countries' governing systems, requiring democracy, human rights and 'good governance'. This volume looks at these developments and considers the conditionality policies of several European aid donors. Such policies are also considered from recipient perspectives, both from the Third World and Russia, and the issue is also considered from a historical perspective.

Author: Eva Brems
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004481958
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description

Author: United Nations Development Programme
Publisher: Human Development Report
ISBN: 0195111583
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
The Human Development Report, now in its seventh edition, updates the unique Human Development Indicators comparing human development in most countries of the world, and the data tables on all aspects of human development. The special focus of this edition is on the important link between economic growth and human development. The Report maintains that the link is not automatic but can be established through proper policy management, arguing the case for initiating and accelerating economic growth and at the same time accelerating and sustaining human development in different parts of the world. The Report also maintains that the quality of growth is as important as its quantity; otherwise, growth can be jobless, voiceless, ruthless, rootless, and futureless. It identifies employment as an important instrument in translating the benefits of economic growth into people's lives.An indispensable resource for courses in international development, the Report ranks 174 countries according to the Human Development Index (HDI). It also gives the global ranking of more than 100 countries in terms of Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The first index represents HDI, taking into account gender inequality in capabilities, and the second represents female opportunities in selected economic and political areas. New to this edition is the Capability Poverty Measure (CPM), which is used as an alternative to the traditional income poverty measure. The Report concludes that the future challenge is how to forge and sustain the desired kind of linkage between economic growth and human development in a globalized world which represents both opportunities and threats for the nations of the world.