Marks, Stephen P. --- "Human Rights and Development" [2010] ELECD 196; in Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam (eds), "Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law

Editor(s): Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203687

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Human Rights and Development

Author(s): Marks, Stephen P.

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

7. Human rights and development
Stephen P Marks



1 The relationship between human rights and development in
international law
The international law of human rights and the international law of develop-
ment are fairly circumscribed, as other chapters in this work clearly point out.
International norms and institutions govern each of these fields, although with
overlapping domains and ambiguous conceptual linkages. Human rights law
draws upon and has its own standards relating to such issues as protection of
refugees, victims of armed conflict, workers, children, and the like, and there-
fore covers a wide range of situations in which the human person is in need of
the protection of the law from harm and abuse, as part of a broader endeavour
to promote human welfare.1
The law of development is less well defined but includes such topics as
international finance, aid, trade, investments, anti-corruption, and lending. The
treaties and other standard-setting instruments considered part of international
development law in one way or another contribute to national and international
efforts to protect vested interests, while often introducing a discourse about
raising the populations of developing countries out of poverty and establishing
a rules-based international political economy conducive to human welfare.2
How should these two strategies of human welfare be distinguished?
Reduced to their most basic purposes, international human rights law
promotes the flourishing of the human person while international development
law promotes wealth creation and growth. Some approaches to development ­
often called `classical' or `neoliberal' and ...