DERE-1108B Development and Human Rights
Specialized agencies of the United Nations and contemporary thinkers such as Amartya Sen insist on the need to articulate strategies of fight against poverty and inequality in complying with constitutional and international obligations of states regarding human rights. Any discussion on such social issues from the perspective of human rights, far from being a rhetoric issue, requires from the states the designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public development policies that have a positive impact on the respect, protection and guarantee of human rights of the entire population, and in particular, vulnerable groups and victims of violence and discrimination. In line with this argument, the seminar dwells upon three issues: (a) It introduces a brief reflection on the nature of social rights, their scope, content and main obligations of the states in this regard, (b) It presents a conceptual framework that integrates the concepts of human needs, poverty, development, vulnerability and social exclusion with the constitutional and international obligations of the state regarding social rights, and (c) It analyzes the possibilities of integrating issues (a) and (b) in a cycle of public development policies in order promote respect, protection and guarantee of human rights.
Catalog page for this course