Human Rights and Globalization

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Let me begin by reviewing some things that may have been discussed earlier, and that is the concept of human rights, which I think, in some ways, has broadened since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights right after World War II. That focused not only on the political rights but also on economic rights. Let me just try to emphasize that I do think that economic rights are very important, one cannot meaningfully exercise political rights if one is starving. Since then there been elaboration and nuancing of the notion of these rights, particularly, for instance, South Africa in its constitution has reflected, adopted a number of notions of economic rights and trying to define more precisely what they mean is not easy, but I think it is an important step forward. The other area where it has been obviously broadened is environmental rights: rights to clean air, you might say rights to survive. Global warming has shown that those rights are at risk. Countries like the Maldives, you might say that the basic human rights of their citizens have been put in jeopardy by the pollution coming from the advanced industrial countries. The life expectancy of their country is 75 years or less and I met with the Prime Ministers and heads of government of many of the South Pacific island states and they too have a very limited life expectancy because of the rising sea level. There are other elaborations or extensions of basic political rights, for instance the citizens’ right to know what their government is doing has become a very important human right both directly and as part of the mechanism by which we insure that governments behave in ways that correspond to the wellbeing of their citizens.