[P2P-F] Fwd: Human Rights: Food for the urgent application of a thought

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan at phmovement.org>
Date: Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Human Rights: Food for the urgent application of a thought
To: michel at p2pfoundation.net


Human Rights: Food for the urgent application of a thought Human Rights
Reader 398 WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE SDGs, WE MUST TALK ABOUT WHAT WE MUST DO T

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Human Rights: Food for the urgent application of a thought

Human Rights Reader 398

*WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE SDGs, WE MUST TALK ABOUT WHAT WE MUST DO TODAY TO
ARRIVE WHERE WE WANT TO BE TOMORROW. THIS COMPELS US TO ADOPT AND APPLY THE
HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK --NOW.*

At the moment, consensus is lacking on how the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can succeed in environments of
disparate governance, especially *given the history of failure of almost
all states to adopt a human rights-based approach*, as well as to foster
genuine participatory politics and ‘direct democracy’ alternatives.
(Fortunate Machingura)

*A quick look back*
1. In the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) we did engage, yes …and, by
so doing, we fell into a trap.(i) The burning question thus now is: *What
room is there left for us now and what spaces do we not want to miss that
are opening for us for immediate, more effective action?* (i): Take an
example: Did the MDGs change trends in child mortality? In all truth, there
has been little assessment of the role the MDGs have had in progressing
this international development indicator. A 41% reduction in the under-five
mortality rate worldwide from 1990 to 2011 has been reported, as well as an
acceleration in the rate of reduction since 2000. But why did this occur?
Results analyzed for all developing countries indicate that it is not due
to more healthcare or public health interventions, but is driven by a
concomitant burst of economic growth. Although the MDGs are considered to
have played an important part in securing progress against poverty, hunger
and disease, there is very little evidence to back up this viewpoint. *A
thorough human rights-based analysis of the successes and failures of the
MDGs is therefore necessary* (and sadly still missing and/or ignored)
before embarking on a new round of global goals as those proposed in the
SDGs. (Declan French)

2. To some, *it would be more appropriate to refer to the MDGs as the
Millennium Development Wishes*. Why? Because, other than taking the human
rights (HR) dimension for granted, the agreement left entirely unspecified
who was to do what. So, if no clear division of labor is specified for
achieving the *SDGs, there is a real danger that any failures will be
blamed on the poorest countries.* This is exactly what happened during the
MDGs era. (Thomas Pogge)

*Cynics will say that international agreements are unenforceable; they are
right*

3. Agreements such as *the SDGs* or the Climate Agreement *appeal to
humanity’s better angels, but are subjected to national self-interested
demons.* The question is whether they strengthen resolve, clarify pathways,
spur global responsibility, promote initiatives or *end up more likely
providing the free riding opportunities that so often characterize global
cooperation* which is big on lip service and short on binding commitments.
(Jeffrey Sachs)

4. *We know:* Cheery declarations are made in pompous summits knowing that
the same are just the beginning of a process, when future progress is
actually what it is all about. (But we are told we must be ‘optimistic’…).
This is primarily because those *political/diplomatic actors ooze
confidence that markets will play a forceful positive, correcting role.*
But as long as these mostly Northern leaders expect the market to do its
job, citizen disaffection will (and does) grow and human rights violations
will (do) continue unabated.(ii) (Roberto Savio)

(ii): Be reminded that *it is all about social justice, not about an
artificially and maliciously thrusted-upon-us ‘market justice’*. (Claudia
Gonzalez)

5. The prestigious journal The Lancet went so far as to say: *“The SDGs are
fairy tales dressed in* the *bureaucratese* of intergovernmental
narcissism, adorned with the robes of multilateral paralysis and poisoned
by the acid of nation state failure. *Yet this is served up as our future”*.
(Richard Horton) Ultimately, *the SDGs* only reflect the consensus by193
nations in a way that ‘balances’ interests in an exercise of compromises
that *reflect the perennial uneven power imbalance reality* in a world of
haves and have-less (or have-nots).

6. The problem is that *the SDGs are toothless, and* are undermined by
their devotion to growth along present models. The SDGs *explicitly and
unapologetically refuse to take the needed steps* to address the fallacies
of this model and are careful to (not unintentionally) shun needed deep,
structural transformations. Public interest civil society and social
movements are clear that *the SDGs represent neither the people’s ambitions
nor their HR concerns.* They are not just inadequate, they are dangerous; *they
will lock in the global development agenda for the next fifteen years
around a failing economic model* that requires urgent and deep structural
changes. (J. Hickel)

7. *What does it really mean to ‘leave no one behind’, as the SDGs
proclaim?*(iii)

*Communities are not forgetfully left behind!* It is the neoliberal
policies that systematically exclude them. (Warda Rina)

• The GDP may well have grown in many places, but inequality grew as
well. *Some
member states agreed to the SDGs agenda reluctantly*, and in subsequent
negotiations there has been a lot of push-back and backtracking by them.
For instance,
*financing negotiations seem to be going back to business as usual*.
Actually, if some of what is on the table right now goes through, it will
create direct obstacles to achieving the SDGs. (Barbara Adams) • *Furthermore,
quite a few UN panels are being steered by corporate interests
* and are not-a-bit inclusive. (Sandra Vermuyten) • *Laws* of countries,
from the U.S. to European countries, *are giving more rights to
corporations than to human beings
*. (Chee Yoke Ling) • Justified apprehensions are coming back as a deja-vu:
Some countries did not start implementing the MDGs in earnest until 10
years after the goals were adopted. *If no action is taken in the first
1,000 days of the SDGs* --in other words, in the first three years up to
September 2018-- then governments and *all of us (more than) risk leaving
people behind and failing to achieve certain goals altogether (mostly those
related to HR!). The world simply cannot afford delays that threaten the
chances of achieving the SDGs. (ODI)

(iii): If we are talking about slogans, this one must be linked with *another
slogan*, namely *nothing about us without us’.* Moreover, the strong and
urgent commitment to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’ can only be
realized if *equally ‘no HR is left behind’*. (Stefano Prato)

8. *Let me share with you what I think are Thomas Pogge’s iron laws about
the SDGs:*

• The approved *SDGs discourse* really *only invites an incremental
approach* to overcoming deprivations: “We have a certain distance to
traverse, and so we set off toward our destination and approach it
step-by-step”. *The HR discourse,* by contrast, *suggests that the
corresponding violations must be ended right away* (or in an agreed,
binding progressive realization plan).
• In fact, the reductions seen during the MDGs would have been much more
substantive if the income gains had not been so heavily concentrated at the
very top of the global income distribution. It is indisputable that, to put
it mildly, *governments have failed to ‘spare no effort’ to reduce severe
deprivations during the MDGs period.*
• In UN-speak, ending deprivations right now means (a) that we must aim for
the full eradication of these deprivations, (b) that we ought to approach
this objective in a continuous manner (without backsliding) and (c) that we
may take as much time as we deem reasonable to complete the task
progressively, but decisively, if needed.
• Neither the fact that hunger and poverty were even worse in earlier
times, nor the anticipated fact that undernutrition and poverty will one
day be eradicated, must be allowed to detract from *the moral HR imperative
so softly expressed in the SDGs.* (The eradication of slavery and of severe
poverty are a morally relevant comparison…*The worldwide eradication of
severe poverty is possible today*, so we must eradicate it now, as fast and
as thoroughly as we possibly can. *The absolute same was true for the
abolition of slavery*: acting could not wait).
• The progressive realization of HR notwithstanding, once we recognize a HR
not to be enslaved, we must not make a 15-year plan aiming to halve the
number of slaves or aiming to reduce floggings by half. (Similarly, *once
we recognized a human right violation to be done away with, we must not
make a 15-year plan* “to halve the killing rate at Nazi concentration
camps…”).
• Never in human history has *severe poverty* been so easily and completely
eradicable as in the present period. (Reads like a cliché, but is’nt) That
we continue to perpetuate it through national and supranational
institutional arrangements that are massively skewed in favor of the
rich *shows
the great moral and political failing of our (and past!) generation(s)*, of
governments and citizens alike.
• The morally and politically required response is to *recognize these
deprivations as massive HR violations that we must stop, at once*, by
implementing institutional reforms at the national and especially the
supranational level.
• At the very center of the SDGs is the Right to Development and the
internationalization of responsibilities pertaining to HR.
• If the world’s most influential agents had been held sufficiently
accountable for what they owe toward making *sustainable development* work,
the concepts of plain level partnerships and universalism would have been
more meaningful, rather than what they are now likely to become: *a
smokescreen for perpetuating global inequalities*.
• *All we have is a long list of Sustainable Development Wishes* along with
the pious hope that economic growth and charitable activities will move
things far enough in the right direction.
• The full realization of HR *requires a massive roll-back of international
and intra-national inequalities, which the SDGs fail to call for, much less
demand.* There is no explicit reference to reducing inequality within and
among countries outside of Goal 10 of the SDGs.
• Moral concerns are easily dismissed as naïve in the context of the jungle
of international relations where each state prioritizes its own interests,
power and often survival.
• As international rules and policies gain in influence and increasingly
reflect the interests of global elites, *economic inequalities mount and
the HR, needs, interests and voices of those rendered poor are increasingly
marginalized and easily disregarded.*
• We tend to look at the trends, and invariably find that things have
become better than they had been before. But such comparisons are wholly
out of place when HR are the issue!
• In this regard, *the SDGs fail by shielding the world’s most powerful
agents from any concrete responsibilities for achieving the new goals*,
when, given their wealth and influence, they ought to be taking the lead in
providing the needed resources for sustainable development and in
implementing systemic institutional reforms that address the root causes of
poverty.
• The assembled governments in Geneva and New York wished that the HR of
those rendered poor would be realized, but they put forth no plan for
contributing to this realization, thus effectively entrusting this task to
the vagaries of charity and economic growth.

*Just consider*

9. To be fair, the SDGs would need to commit to setting and measuring
poverty at closer to U$7.40/cap/day (the ethical poverty line, adjusted to
2011 Purchasing Power Parity), and hunger at closer to the normal physical
activity threshold by gender and age (or, alternatively, using a
survey-based methodology). Anything less than this will result in a
misleading assessment of the problem and in inaccurate reports about
progress. *The SDGs will thus need to include monitoring mechanisms to
prevent the kind of statistical manipulation that has compromised the
MDGs.* *Basically,
the SDGs want to reduce inequality by ratcheting the poor up, but while
leaving the wealth and power of the ‘global 1%’ of the richest intact;*
they cynically want the best of both worlds. They irresponsibly fail to
accept that mass impoverishment is the product of extreme wealth
accumulation and overconsumption by a few that, along the way, bring with
them processes of marginalization, extraction, and exploitation. *You
cannot solve the problem of poverty without challenging the pathologies of
accumulation*. (J. Hickel)

10. *Some states, foreign aid and private philanthropy actors are already
‘cherry-picking’ goals* and targets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, and are *totally overlooking the HR perspective*. Rather than
treating all 17 Goals in the 2030 Agenda on equal footing to protect the
most marginalized and vulnerable populations and to improve their
situation, *we are already witnessing some goals getting more support than
others. Addressing individual SDG goals (17 of them) and targets (169 of
them) is not intended to replace international HR obligations.* (Stefano
Prato)

11. In the same vein, the *private sector*'s contribution to the SDGs
agenda must take place with *due regard to its responsibility to do no harm
and to respect HR*, i.e., their agenda must, in no way, become
the-perfect-excuse to give less priority to their binding human rights
obligations.(iv) (UNHCR)

(iv): For instance, as regards the right to food, the SDGs unavoidably will
give priority to the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Initiative.... (
http://scalingupnutrition.org/) This can realistically be foreseen and
little we can do about it despite the many-times-pointed-out conflicts of
interest the role of the private sector plays in it and in the forthcoming
Decade of Action for Nutrition. The question is: Do we really, politically,
want this? Will it open space for HR? Funds will go to Public Private
Partnerships (PPPs) and multistakeholder platforms and we can guess that
this will not necessarily open spaces for HR.

*Only participation and accountability from below (bottom-centered) will
make the SDGs relevant for all*

1. *The effective implementation of the SDGs depends on* it being
consistent with the overarching commitment to HR. This includes
*accountability,
non-discrimination and equality*, notably gender equality --*and* clear
consideration of *the primacy of claim holders* demanding States’ uphold
their HR obligations. (Stefano Prato)

13. What we further need is to tackle head-on the irrationality of endless
growth, pointing out that *capitalist growth* --as measured by GDP--* is
not the solution to poverty and the ecological crisis, but rather the
primary cause.* And we need a saner measure of human progress --one that
gears us not towards more extraction and consumption by the world’s elite,
but towards more fairness, more equality, more fulfilled HR, more
wellbeing, more sharing --to the benefit of the vast majority of humanity.
The SDGs fail us on this. They offer to *tinker with the global economic
system* in a well-meaning bid to make it all seem a bit less violent. *But
this is not a time for tinkering*. (J. Hickel)

14. The 2030 Agenda –as *the SDGs* are also, in my view, distortingly
addressed as-- is already experiencing significant attempts to *coopt and
‘domesticate’ civil society’s engagement by fully aligning its agenda to
that of the SDGs and undermining any attempts to promote (valid) dissent.*
This calls for a more sophisticated strategy of resistance and proactivity,
one that engages with the process without accepting its limitations and
pushes for a level of ambition that is far beyond the currently framed
objectives and targets. The current means of SDGs implementation will
simply not provide the necessary instruments and resources to advance the
aspirations and the depth of transformation that progressive public
interest civil society and social movements need to foster. This
fundamentally means that these groups cannot limit themselves to the
monitoring of the currently framed SDG targets and financial commitments
made (or not made) so far, as these are largely inadequate (even if
achieved) to support the extent of economic, social and political changes
that we collectively aspire to. *Hence the need to establish a far more
ambitious progressive agenda that raises the bar with respect to the
existing level of commitment.* (Stefano Prato)

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
schuftan at gmail.com
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©2016 Claudio Schuftan | 121 38 St BTT D2, Saigon, Vietnam
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