Analysis of Millennium Development Goal 8: A Global Partnership for Development

Abstract

This article inquires into what have been the normative and empirical impacts of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8's choice of targets and indicators on human rights. It identifies some principles on the duty of international cooperation for the achievement of human rights and applies them through a set of questions as to the targets and indicators of MDG 8. The article assesses whether the chosen targets and indicators for MDG 8 enhanced accountability of rich countries for the extraterritorial human rights impacts of their economic policies, whether they increased participation in the design of economic development policies, whether they promoted mobilization of maximum available resources and whether they supported the progressive realization of economic and social rights. It finds (with some minor exceptions) that MDG 8 targets and indicators were indifferent to human rights principles and, additionally, that they created dynamics and incentives for policy-making that were ultimately detrimental to the implementation of norms on international cooperation for the achievement of human rights. The article offers some ideas on how, in a new generation of development goals, targets and indicators for a goal on international cooperation could be more aligned with the relevant requirements of international human rights norms.