Human Development and Human Rights in the International Agenda of the XXIst Century
| Autor | Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade |
| Ocupação do Autor | Juiz da Corte Internacional de Justiça (Haia) |
| Páginas | 718-735 |
XXXIII
Human Development and Human Rights in the
International Agenda of the XXIst Century1
Sumário:1I. Introduction. II. Human Development and Human Rights. 1. The Con-
ceptual Construction of Human Development. 2. Crystallization of the Right to
Development as a Human Right. III. The Contribution of the Recent Cycle of world
Conferences Convened by the United Nations. 1. U.N. Conference on Environ-
ment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992). 2. II world Conference on Human
Rights (Vienna, 1993). 3. International Conference on Population and Develop-
ment (Cairo, 1994). 4. world Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen,
1995). 5. IV world Conference on women (Beijing, 1995). 6. U.N. Conference on
Human Settlements (Habitat-I I, Istambul, 1996). IV. Conclusions.
I. Introduction
The ceremony which takes place today, 07 August 2000, at the headquarters of
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José of Costa Rica, in which the
Human Development Report 2000 of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) is presented in the premises of an internationa l human rights tribuna l, has
a symbolic value. Human development and human rights are brought together, as
they should, in a systematic way, in that Report. Moreover, a regional system of pro-
tection of the rights of human beings operates necessarily within the framework of
the universality of human rights. And, given the international scenario of today’s
world, there is no reason why human rights and developmental organs should not
work more closely together, to the ultimate benefit of the human person.
The UNDP has been warning, for some time now, that more than a billion
people keep on living – or surviving – today in conditions of extreme poverty2.
There is, most unfortunately, a considerable and alarming number of persons liv-
ing today in conditions of extreme vulnerability as a result of the phenomenon of
general impoverishment, which seems to be aggravating since the beginning of
1 Conferência proferida pelo Autor no Seminário Internacional sobre Desenvolvimento
Humano, realizado na sede da Corte Intera mericana de Direitos Humanos em San Jos é da Costa
Rica, em 07 de agosto de 2000, e copatrocinado pela Corte Interamerica na e pelo Programa das
Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD/UNDP).
2 Cf., e.g., UNDP, Human Development Report 1993, Oxford, University Press, 1993, p. 1.
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A HUMANIZAÇÃO DO DIREITO INTERNACIONAL
the eighties3. As we warned in a book seven years ago, given the aggravation
nowadays of the tragic phenomenon of impoverishment of large sectors of the
population, attention is shifted in particular to the situation of the vast segments
of the population unjustly excluded from the benefits of so-called “growth” and
“modernization”4.
The matter has, not surprisingly, has been atracting grwoing attention of the
UNDP as well as of international supervisory organs operating in the domain of hu-
man rights protection. Furthermore, it has assumed a central position in the recent
cycle of World Conferences convened by the United Nations in the nineties (on Envi-
ronment and Development, 1992; Human Rights, 1993; Population and Development,
1994; Social Development, 1995; Women, 1995; Habitat-II, 1996). Those Conferences
have disclosed a concern with the deterioration of living conditions dramatically af-
fecting increasingly greater segments of the population in many parts of the world
nowadays, and have acknowledged the pressing need to revert this situation.
In fact, if one is to detect a common denominator in the recent U.N. World
Conferences, it may well be found in the recognition of the legitimacy of the concern
of the international community as a whole with the conditions of living of all human
beings5. In meeting the challenge of the eradication of poverty, education and
knowledge – people’s empowerment – are recognized as being of key importance to
pursue and achieve human development. This, in turn, has a direct bearing upon
the prevalence of human rights. At the United Nations level, recent endeavours to
face the challenge of pursuing development in the light of human rights are reflect-
ed in the conceptual construction of human development, the formulation of the
right to development as a human right, and the relevant work in this domain of the
current cycle of U.N. World Conferences. Let us consider these three points.
3 Cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, “Sustainable Human Development and Conditions of Life as
a Matter of Legitimate International Concern: The Legacy of t he U.N. World Conferences”,
Japan and International Law – Past, Present and Future (International Symposium to Ma rk the
Centennial of the Japanese Association of International Law), The Hague, Kluwer, 1999, pp.
285-286; A.A. Cançado Trindade, “L’interdépendance de tous les droits de l’homme et leur
mise en oeuvre: obstacles et enjeux”, 158 Revue internationale des sciences sociales – Paris/
UNESCO (1998) pp. 571-582.
4 A.A. Cançado Trindade, Direitos Humanos e Meio Ambiente – Paralelo dos Sistemas de Proteção
Internacional, Porto Alegre/Brazil, S.A. Fabris Ed., 1993, pp. 96-97, and cf. pp. 99-112 (on the
protection of vulnerable groups and t he fulfilment of basic human needs) and 89-97 (on the
protection of vulnerable groups at the conf luence of international huma n rights law and
international environmental law).
5 A.A. Cançado Trindade, “The Contribution of Recent World Conferences of the United
Nations to the Relations between Sust ainable Development and Economic, Social and Cultu ral
R ig ht s ”, in Les hommes et l’environnement: Quels droits pour le vingt-et-unièm e siècle? – Études en
hommage à Alexandre Kiss (eds. M. Prieur and C. Lambrechts), Paris, Éd. Frison-Roche, 1998,
pp. 119-146 .
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