INTRODUCTION

Human rights have, for at least two reasons, become a pervasive aspect of good governance. First, the normative language of human rights can arguably be seen as an instrument that nurtures, shapes, determines or validates good governance, and ultimately, the practice of development. Secondly, and the focus of attention in this chapter, is that the various initiatives and practices of good governance have themselves sustained the plurality of meanings and values of human rights. Good governance is now an important basis for the enjoyment of human rights, and it places the free-market economy (deregulation, devaluation and privatisation) as a key source of normativity for human rights. The purpose of this chapter, as such, is to consider and explain how the market-based human rights approach works, including providing reasons for its emergence, its philosophical underpinnings, its limitations, and the role of the Bretton Wood Institutions (BWIs) in the processes of its diffusion. In doing so, the chapter outlines and defends the general critique of the role of markets in human rights discourse.