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When is an Omelet? What is an Egg? Some thought on Economic Development and Human Rights in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

David M. Trubek
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Abstract

It has been observed that the international development effort is a form of secular religion. If this is so, we can say that the salvation it aspires to is the realization of human rights. Thus it is no surprise that the doctrine and dogma of development work, appearing in the secular guise of “theory” and “policy,” are intimately concerned with the problem of the relationship between economic development and the ultimate goal of human rights.

Type
Economic Development and Human Rights: Brazil, Chile, and Cuba
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 67 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 67th Annual Meeting Washington, D.C. April 12-14, 1973 , November 1973 , pp. 198 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1973

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Footnotes

*

Yale University.

References

1 These ideas can be seen in our own legal doctrine. For example, we say that a state has no obligation to allow criminal appeals, but if it does, it must provide transcripts, counsel, etc, to indigent defendants.

2 Some rights are on the borderline between the political and the social. The right to education is usually considered a social right, as it guarantees a certain minimum of social goods, or imposes a specific social program on the state. On the other hand, it could be argued that education, like freedom of speech, is necessary for the functioning of the political process in a democratic state, and thus is actually a necessary formal guarantee of a political process whose output is otherwise unspecified.

3 See, e.g., Rusk, D., The Alliance for Progress in the Context of World Affairs, in Dreier, ed., The Alliance for Progress (1962)Google Scholar.

4 The Alliance emerged at a time when the social sciences in America were rediscovering what European sociology had recognized in the 19th century: that a capitalist economic system could only function in the context of a certain kind of society, which we now label “modern.” The Alliance program for social reform was basically a recipe for forced modernization for, that is, the creation of the social bases of industrial capitalism.