1. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) both serve accountability purposes, but must be directed towards human rights standards and principles if they are to have even a chance to improve the…
1. Oppressed people that lack the capacity for collective action are historically doomed. That is where empowerment comes-in in human rights (HR) work. Actually, for us, the very meaning of…
Relativism in no way precludes the possibility of cross-cultural universals 1. Moral and cultural relativism have indeed affected the human rights discourse, but on the philosophical level only. 2. Unfortunately,…
Inequality is at the root of human rights (HR) work. Should I thus find it cynical that only in 2011 has the IMF ‘come out of the closet’ in a…
A few loose ends will benefit from some further clarification; this is what this Reader attempts. On obligations 1. The obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of…
1. As a general comment on the Readers, I would contrast two possible styles of dealing with the issue of health rights: a. Taking the human rights (HR) approach as…
1. Political pressures from the powerful and the abuse of public office affect a government’s commitment to human rights. This is especially true in the arbitrary world of autocracy (the…
In development work, ‘advocacy’ is a word in everybody’s lips. But what is it really? 1. Advocacy can be defined differently depending on the context it is being used-in. One…
1. We have a tremendous underutilized accumulated knowledge on the past and ongoing ‘development processes’ that, for the most part, have been human rights-blind. Allow me just a few examples.…
1. Mind you, we have duties towards people we never know… and they have similar duties towards us. The human rights framework thus basically looks at people in societies with…