A/HRC/33/21
collectively at the global and regional levels in that regard. Those criteria included stability,
rule of law, predictability, non-discrimination, peace, security, democracy, transparency,
accountability, human rights and a fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of
development.
20.
Ms. Piovesan stressed that a basic value of the right to development was solidarity,
which invoked the principle of shared responsibility in the global order. She concluded by
recalling that the 2030 Agenda was informed by the Declaration, and that the Declaration
remained a dynamic and living instrument capable of addressing the contemporary
challenges of advancing global democracy and global justice based on solidarity,
international cooperation and participation, and the active engagement and creativity of
civil society; development was therefore an empowering process.
21.
Quoting Bob Marley, “Them belly full but we hungry, a hungry mob is an angry
mob”, Mr. McCook stated that the right to development, encompassing civil, political,
economic, social and cultural rights, was a globally accepted right that laid the foundation
upon which the international community based the promotion and protection of
fundamental human rights. He warned that while the international community had agreed
on the right to development, it could not assume that the task was done by simply agreeing
that it was so. States must commit to taking the steps to realize the right to development and
recognize that the right must be promoted and protected by all.
22.
Mr. McCook recalled that the holistic approach of the right to development was first
taken by Jamaica which, on gaining independence in 1962, called for human rights to be
placed at the centre of the global agenda. Jamaica had come from a legacy of slavery and
colonization and therefore called for commitments to ensure that those and other practices
of the past would be banished from collective values and replaced with fundamental
commitments that would secure for future generations the rights denied in the past. The
narrative of the human right to development had for too long been about statistics instead of
people. Development was not merely growth; it was a measure of the opportunity to which
such growth should be directed. Therefore, the right to development was vital to the human
rights agenda because it came after sober reflections on abuses.
23.
The right to development recognized that human rights had been brutally sacrificed
at the altar of economics and commerce, the most horrific manifestation of which was the
transatlantic slave trade. The ultimate purpose of commerce and economics, social and
cultural development should be to serve the human person. To pursue the right through
policy measures, affirmative actions were needed to help restore the balance and bring
equity. The fundamental principles of the 2030 Agenda enjoyed natural synergies with the
Declaration that could be harnessed by moving from rhetoric to reality and putting to rest
the debate about a “hierarchy of rights”. The right to development was an enabler of other
rights. Social harmony and the freedoms that we cherished could best be attained when
societies were free from the risk of being drowned in poverty and destitution.
24.
Furthermore, domestic agendas demanded increasing obligations. Freedom from
fear and want would be achieved by placing the human person before economic, social, and
cultural development. The right to development could not be squared with systems that
relied on unequal structures. It was a human right in which all peoples were entitled to
participate; it recognized the interlinked relationship between rights and development
processes.
25.
Mr. McCook stressed that in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals,
inequity should not be crystalized but corrected by taking affirmative measures. The solemn
pledge of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind and its affirmation that the dignity of the
human person was fundamental left no doubt. In order to implement the right to
development and the Goals, States must begin moving towards fulfilling the ambitious
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