1. Since most scholarly articles on human rights (HR) fall, without making much of a sound either in the academic forest or in the real world, actively establishing HR responsibilities and forcefully demanding HR accountability remains the most promising avenue for the realization (respect, protection and fulfillment) of HR.
2. To succeed in this, we first need to make clear which level(s) of government is (are) responsible for the given function impinging on a certain HR (of course, acknowledging that there are overlapping responsibilities between the local and central levels). Clarifying the responsibility of the different levels, particularly on the spending side, is thus at the center of a policy dialogue between claim holders and duty bearers. This is needed because, in most cases, the decision-making authority has become remote from citizens’ local concerns.
3. At the local level, claim holders find the local tier of administration that acts on behalf of the center. (Traditionally, local authorities depend on the center to make financing available through transfers that too often already come earmarked for particular central objectives). This does not mean that this level of administrative duty bearers cannot be held responsible for outcomes (even while realizing that they themselves may be claim holders to central level duty bearers). Claims-holding-beneficiaries need to be aware of incomplete decentralization processes and thus be aware of still overlapping/poorly-defined responsibilities (and/or the default on the same) –both situations with well known HR consequences.
4. Under such a scenario, access to local-own-resources-revenue is thus critical, coming from, for example, progressive local taxation (on property, for instance); the latter can be used in the generation of this local-own-revenue. The possibility to generate additional local own-sources-revenue also provides opportunities for community representative to participate in local governance.*
*: Participatory governance is a powerful engine to act as a ‘political kindergarten’ for citizens by nurturing in them a sense of agency in an open, direct-democracy process that fosters and protects HR. (As Amartya Sen has said: Countries should not become fit for democracy, but become fit through democracy).
5. What is poorly understood is that the point in the HR framework is not about better ‘managing’, but about ‘governing’ differently, because the latter not only encompasses the function of managing, but also locates it in the larger political context.
[Therefore, HR issues have to be brought close enough to the citizens (through HR learning) in a way that assures more democratic solutions to reverse current HR violations].
6. The use of claim holders/duty bearers contractual arrangements or memoranda of understanding:
• for the delivery of certain outcomes that redress existing HR violations,
• that give claim holders more direct responsibilities over the budgeting process and over policy decision and outcomes,
has come to be known as ‘directed performance budgeting’. These results-based, participatory budgets allow for a more accountable political framework by clarifying HR outcomes for which duty bearing agencies will set aside a budget line and will thus be held accountable; such a process also puts a premium on transparency in the use of public funds, provided that outcomes are properly and regularly monitored by the organized beneficiaries.
7. Most local governments are unfortunately at a disadvantage in this context, because both their resources and their capabilities are generally limited; more so if we are talking about HR… Moreover, another risk, even at local level, is that rarely is the voice of the poorest heard at the same decibel level or with the same sense of priority as that of the wealthier.
[This can explain why the poorest sometimes simplistically prefer a benevolent, populist dictator to a dysfunctional democratic government…].
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org