For
example, the top 20% of the richest countries account for 86% of
the world's overall gross domestic product, whereas the bottom 20%
poorest are left with 1%. The catastrophic extension of poverty,
attested to in the reports of the United Nations, the international
organizations and even the international financial institutions,
makes it imperative to implement and promote the Declaration of
the Right to Development.
This Declaration, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly
in 1986, is a sort of latter day offspring of the non-aligned movement,
which, during the 1960s and 1970s, still had the strength and the
conviction to work to impose a more just and equitable international
world economic order.
Although this new world order was never effectively brought about,
the world -view it represents is today still eminently relevant
- legally, politically and morally.
It is thus not surprising that this view is currently being maliciously
attacked, with certain Northern country governments striving to
eliminate all trace of it, while others work to weaken or warp its
substance. For it is diametrically opposed to prevailing dominant
policies, especially those advocated by the IMF, the World Bank,
the WTO, the G-7 or NATO, policies which would crush any attempt
by the peoples of the Third World to adopt autonomous policies in
pursuit of a development model oriented to their own needs. As for
the new elites of the South, for the most part they are more anxious
to accept positions on the sidelines than to promote "a global
economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at
an unflagging improvement of the well being of the overall population
and of all individuals, on the basis of active, free and significant
participation in development and of equitable sharing of the benefits
derived there from" (quote from the preamble of the Declaration).
To the extent that they defend the Declaration, they do so half-heartedly
and ambiguously.
It is our view that this Declaration can constitute a legal and
moral reference for social movements if they make it their own and
use it to remind their governments of the commitment undertaken
by approving it, whenever those governments sign "letters of
intention" forced upon them by the IMF, ratify agreements of
the WTO or authorize the activities and investments of TNCs.
In this spirit, the CETIM has long been intervening at the UN instances
for human rights to prevent the Declaration's consignment to oblivion
and the systematic blocking of its implementation, while pushing
for its effective promotion.
Only pressure from the people will manage to achieve this. |
