Oscar Okech Kanyangareng
4 April 2008
opinion
The last one month has witnessed a running debate as to whether justice, law and order are key to development as advanced by Charles Peter Mayiga in Daily Monito of Februrary 28 and Eric Naigambi in Daily Monitor, March 14.
This was opposed by Stanley Kinyata who emphasised that industrialisation and trade as key to development and then law and order that will automatically come into play once people's welfare is taken care of.
While industrialisation and trade can be engines of growth and economic development, there is also need to address issues of human rights, freedoms, justice, law and order as key aspects of development. As Nobel Laureate Armatya Sen in his book, Development as Freedom, says development should go beyond just increasing incomes to enhancing people's capabilities and the rights to various freedoms that give everyone an equal opportunity to unlock their individual and collective potential and exploit their abilities to the full. These rights were captured in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political rights in 1966, that concerns human rights, freedom, justice, law and order.
This was reaffirmed at the UN Vienna Convention that reaffirmed that democracy, development and respect for freedoms and human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The 2002 World Bank report, Voices of the Poor, also confirmed that poor people cared about civil and political rights such as safety and security as much as food and water.. Little wonder then that the peasants in Uganda have continued to massively vote for Museveni for 'bringing peace'.
On Kinyata's argument, it's true that people on empty stomachs and illiterate can't observe the law, influence public policies, or demand justice. On the contrary, the poor don't even attend public meetings because they are either too timid or busy with other things. It's against this background that the UN Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights was passed in 1967.
The aim is to address issues of physical wellbeing of the person. This includes water, health, education, knowledge, housing, access to land, finance, human resource and trade. These come with industrialisation and trade. Without these rights being fulfilled, the civil and political rights (justice, law and order) can't also be enjoyed in full. Hence, the two points of view: Iindustrialisation and trade vis-avis justice, law and order are interlinked to bring about a holistic development.
The UN 1993 Vienna Convention declared that these rights are human rights which are universal, indivisible, interdependent, inter-related and mutually reinforcing.
Rather, one set of rights, at times called first generation rights - the civil and political rights to which Naigambi's and Mayiga's argumnents focus on and the other set of rights, at times called second generation rights - the economic (industry, capital, human resource and trade), social (institutional and organisational set up, education and health) and cultural (associations, values and work ethic) rights to which Kinyata's argument focuses on are equally important and reinforce each other. So both groups are talking about two sides of the same coin.
To emphasise my point, the 1995 Copenhagen World Summit on Social Development came up with guiding principles to enhance the achievement of the two sets of rights -hence development. These are the principles of universality, equality and non-discrimination, participation and inclusion of every citizen. These principles consider citizens as subjects and not objects of development; they become actors rather than passive recipients of development. It notes that the failure to achieve both sets of rights is a violation of human dignity.
In working towards the achievement of these rights by turning them into development goals such as through the Economic Partnership Agreements ( EPAs) or trade talks, The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) states and the international community must respect, protect and fulfil these rights through these goals and strive to work towards the progressive realisation of these rights within resources available. While doing so, the realisation of one right shouldn't undermine the achievement of the others.
The writer is a member of Daily Monitor Panel of Experts and Executive Director, Africa Leadership Institute
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