A. The Significance of the Generation Theory
The generational categories in rights thought serve to emphasize two
important factors: First, human rights are in a constant process of developing
as the world changes and as non-Western groups gain influence; second,
even though experts emphasize at conference after conference that human
rights are universal, this is true primarily at the declaration level.
The Nordic editors of a relatively new textbook on economic, social,
and cultural rights energetically attempt to destroy the generation theory,
but they nevertheless find it necessary to relate to it.14
States in the Third World have promoted initiatives regarding the right
to development, but the status of this rights-complex remains unclear. In his
discussion of this, Allan Rosas stresses three especially significant perspectives.15
First, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is in itself an
expression of the relationship between civil, political, and socio-economic
rights and thus of the universality of human rights. Second, the Declaration
contains elements that stress both individual rights and group rights (e.g.,
minorities’ rights). Third, it is clear from the Declaration that states are not
the subjects of the right to development.
Developing countries set their imprint on rights thought in the 1990s,
both by making rights more socially oriented and by questioning the focus
on the individual that has characterized human rights thought in the West.
Human rights thought in the 1990s also increasingly emphasized that the
opportunity for individuals and groups to participate in development is a
human right.16 It is true that this is happening as part of what jurists would
call “soft law,” meaning law that is not binding. But on the whole, the changes of recent years signal a paradigm shift that places individuals’ and
groups’ development on the agenda as a central element of human rights
thought.
These changes are significant in two ways. First, such a shift stresses
“development from below” as being central. Second, it weakens the
traditional state-individual thinking that otherwise dominates human rights.17
The state’s actions are not a matter of indifference in the Declaration on the
Right to Development, but given the Declaration’s distinctions among
states, individuals, groups, and people, the opportunity is created for a more
direct relationship between individuals or groups and donors or corporations
without involving the state.18 This opportunity may help make human
rights more relevant in the relationship between enterprises (multi-nationals)
and individuals or groups.