[governance] right to development, the structure of IGC and IG issues for march deadline

[Vittorio Bertola]

Il giorno mar, 07/03/2006 alle 20.26 +0100, Meryem Marzouki ha scritto:
> - 1st generation (roughly, civil and political rights) are rights of  
> the _individual_ vis-a-vis the power (now the state or the government).
> - 2nd generation (roughly, economic, social and cultural rights) are  
> more _collective_ rights, and are sometimes referred to as "claim- 
> rights". Rather than being affirmed against the power, they need the  
> positive intervention of the state (through dedicated public  
> policies, specially in the economic and social fields) to be  
> realized. 2nd generation because they are supposed to ensure the  
> actual benefit of 1st generation rights.
> - 3rd generation (like the "right to development", "right to peace  
> and security", "right to a sustainable environment", "rights to  
> peoples' self-determination", etc. - not all of them necessarily  
> formally recognized by a UN declaration) are rather seen as  
> _solidarity_ rights, and most of the time intended neither as rights  
> of an individual, nor rights of a group of individuals identified by  
> their economic/social status (e.g. workers), but as rights of  
> communities or peoples (e.g. indigeneous peoples), supposed to create  
> the necessary conditions for the implementation of 1st and 2nd  
> generation rights).

This is going to be quite an ideological discussion (finally, I agree we
need some). However, I'll start by saying that it's unlikely that we
will ever reach agreement among all of us on ideological matters, and I
think that civil society works better by temporary "variable geometry"
alliances on specific proposals, than by ideological cohesion.

So none of us should take an ideology (whatever it is) and try to push
it as if it was "the ideas of civil society" or "what's right for civil
society".

> Yes, there is a debate on this concept of "3rd generation rights",  
> with, roughly speaking, those who think they are rights (like 1st and  
> 2nd generation rights) 

Actually, just to offer some reality check, in many developed countries
many wouldn't agree even on what you call "2nd generation rights" (at
least in practical policy decisions - high sounding words are another
matter, of course). Workers' protection, pensions, spending on public
health and education are continuously decreasing, and "the positive
intervention of the state" is something that even Communist Parties
almost don't dare to mention any more.

So I'm not sure whether you are affirming that these "three generation
of rights" are to be given for granted, as a matter of fact accepted by
everyone (or even just everyone in CS), or whether this is your personal
view of the matter and you would like civil society as a whole to
embrace your ideas. My understanding would be the latter.

> It remains that the "right to development" has been formally  
> universally recognized (cf. the link I provided to you in a previous  
> message). And that, if we ever want to discuss (on this list) how an  
> IG decision is compliant or not with the "right to development", then  
> it would be interesting to ask ourselves questions like e.g. how  
> telecom interconnection costs between different parts of the world  
> impact the development of a given part of the world, and whether this  
> is compliant with the (State binding) right to development. 

This is another interesting point: a specific country might subscribe to
a "right to development", but, from a legal standpoint, does that bind a
multinational corporation, in which cases, and how?

This becomes even more difficult as there is no practical definition of
what that means: I agree that Internet interconnection costs are a
hurdle to development and should be reframed, but if, by absurd, telcos
were forced to give free connectivity to LDCs, are you sure that that
would help development? Wouldn't that just end up in telcos providing
free connectivity of such a bad quality that no one would actually use
it, or in preventing investments since no one could ever return from
them? 

So even if you agree that a right to development exists, how do you
decide what that means in practice, and what's the best thing to do to
support development, and whether that involves more "intervention of the
state" or rather less of it?

Thanks,
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...

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