Human Rights' Dawn or Developmentalism’s Twilight? Rights Politics at the United Nations during the Long 1970s

• In Event: 3255 - Human Rights

Abstract

The 1970s are increasingly described as a “breakthrough” period for human rights. During this decade, human rights becomes a "new utopia" in the words of historian Sam Moyn, one that privileges the protection of the individual rights-bearer as the ultimate expression of justice. This paper takes, as its point of departure, the observation that the 1970s was also the decade of the New International Economic Order--an effort by the developing countries of the global South to realize a quite different utopia: development. Why did a human rights regime centered on securing the rights of individuals against the state break through at precisely the time when developing country governments were using the language of rights to make claims on other states? I explore this question by revisiting three moments of “rights politics” at the United Nations, which suggest how the animating vision of the NIEO continues to resonate in contemporary discussions of human rights in international relations. These episodes are: 1) the 1975 Charter on the Rights and Duties of States; 2) the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development; and 3) the erstwhile 2003 Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights. I argue that a focus on rights politics at the United Nations enables a different perspective on the evolution of human rights, as it underscores the role of states as opposed to the non-state actors, especially international NGOs, that loom so large in much of the human rights literature.

Author

• Jennifer L. Bair, University of Virginia