[News] The Right to Development Is an Inalienable Human Right
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Thu Dec 25 11:22:34 EST 2025
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The Right to Development Is an Inalienable Human Right: The Fifty-Second
Newsletter (2025)
Sixty years after the Tricontinental Conference, the right to
development – the material basis of dignity – remains the horizon of
socialist revolution and national liberation.
Unknown artist (OSPAAAL), /Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia/,
1968. Courtesy of The Radical Media Archive.
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=a21fcbf0ec&e=d206d0a40d>.
/In memory of Mehdi Ben Barka (1920–1965), in whose footsteps we walk/.
Nearly sixty years ago, in January 1966, hundreds of revolutionaries
from across the Third World gathered in Havana, Cuba, for the First
Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America
– the Tricontinental Conference. There, they discussed the
/inevitability/ of decolonisation and their ideas for a world beyond
imperialism. Fidel Castro and the other organisers called the conference
to bring together the two currents of world revolution: the current of
socialist revolution and that of national liberation. The delegates saw
the need to radicalise the ideals of sovereignty that had been given
voice ten years earlier at the Bandung Conference
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They were frustrated that the world order remained trapped in the
structures of neocolonialism that kept even newly independent countries
in cycles of underdevelopment, with formerly revolutionary national
liberation parties demobilising as soon as new flags went up and new
anthems began to play.
To commemorate the legacy of the Tricontinental Conference, which gives
our institute its name, this month we released dossier no. 95
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/Imperialism Will Inevitably Be Defeated: The Re-Emergence of the
Tricontinental Spirit/ (December 2025). Throughout 2026 we will also
organise several online and in-person discussions and seminars (the
first of these, co-hosted with CLACSO, the Latin American Council of
Social Sciences, can be viewed here
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=7cd1acd58b&e=d206d0a40d>).
In the dossier we argue that while the Bandung Spirit was anchored in an
insistence on sovereignty and multilateralism, the Tricontinental Spirit
pushes further, grounding true emancipation in dignity and the class
struggle.
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One of the key ideas of the Bandung and Tricontinental eras was that
dignity cannot be achieved without development – and that the right to
development belongs to all peoples in the world. In November 1957, the
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution
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1161 (XII) on Balanced and Integrated Economic and Social Development.
Four years later in 1961, the UNGA declared
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that the 1960s would be the ‘United Nations Development Decade’. In May
1968, toward the end of that decade, the delegates at the United Nations
International Conference on Human Rights in Tehran, Iran, adopted The
Proclamation of Tehran
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which warned:
The widening gap between the economically developed and developing
countries impedes the realisation of human rights in the
international community. The failure of the Development Decade to
reach its modest objectives makes it all the more imperative for
every nation, according to its capacities, to make the maximum
possible effort to close this gap.
The Tricontinental Conference took place in the middle of this so-called
development decade. At the time, there was already a clear recognition
among the leading countries of the Third World that the UN’s development
framework could not close the gap so long as the global economy remained
organised along structures of dependency. It would take almost two
decades after Tehran for the UN to adopt a declaration on the right to
development. On 4 December 1986, as many Third World states were already
collapsing under the weight of a debt crisis that would stretch into the
1990s, the UNGA finally adopted
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the Declaration on the Right to Development. The document shone with the
very best of ideals:
The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of
which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate
in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and
political development, in which all human rights and fundamental
freedoms can be fully realised (Article 1.1).
…
States should undertake, at the national level, all necessary
measures for the realisation of the right to development and shall
ensure, /inter alia/, equality of opportunity for all in their
access to basic resources, education, health services, food,
housing, employment and the fair distribution of income. Effective
measures should be undertaken to ensure that women have an active
role in the development process. Appropriate economic and social
reforms should be carried out with a view to eradicating all social
injustices (Article 8.1).
States should encourage popular participation in all spheres as an
important factor in development and in the full realisation of all
human rights (Article 8.2).
These ideals are enshrined in UN resolutions and declarations not
because of the altruism of the Global North but because hundreds of
millions of people in anti-colonial and socialist movements fought for them.
Rafael Morante Boyerizo (OSPAAAL), /No to Militarism and Hunger/, 1981.
Courtesy of The Radical Media Archive.
Two years after the declaration was adopted, the World Bank published
the /World Development Report/
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(1988), which found that the Third World’s total external debt had
reached over $1.035 trillion in 1986, a staggering leap from $560
billion in 1982 and $130 billion in 1974. The report noted: ‘Their [the
Third World states] debts are growing, but they still face negative net
resource transfers because debt service obligations exceed the limited
amounts of new financing. In some developing countries the severity of
this prolonged economic slump already surpasses that of the Great
Depression in the industrial countries, and in many countries, poverty
is on the rise’. The International Monetary Fund reached a similar
conclusion in its own assessment
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which placed Third World total debt at $916 billion, a slightly lower
number that still pointed to the same trend.
Next year will be the fortieth anniversary of the UN Declaration on the
Right to Development, but few people will commemorate it. Since 1986,
there have been efforts
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within the UN human rights system to move from a non-binding largely
symbolic declaration towards a legally binding instrument. Yet those
efforts have met sustained resistance from the wealthier nations, who
see such an instrument as being detrimental to their monopoly over
wealth and resources.
In October 2021
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for instance, the Human Rights Council adopted its annual resolution on
the right to development by a vote of 29 to 13, with 5 abstentions. The
13 votes against all came from Global North countries. Two years later,
in October 2023
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when the council voted to submit a draft convention on the right to
development to the UNGA, the resolution again passed by a vote of 29 to
13, with 5 abstentions. All votes against once again came from the
Global North countries. It is patently clear that despite the North’s
rhetorical support for development, it has spent plenty of energy
cutting UN resolutions on development down to size and even preventing
any discussion of major debt relief, a crucial step for Global South
development.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the right to development:
proclaimed as inalienable yet denied in practice. Dossier no. 95 returns
to the Tricontinental Spirit’s insistence that emancipation cannot be
measured by flags and speeches, but by whether people’s lives materially
improve. Development is not a slogan, nor a set of targets to be managed
from above. It is the right to expand people’s capacity to live with
dignity. But such a right will remain out of reach for most of humanity
so long as debt service, coercive economic measures, and wars continue
to drain the social wealth of the poorer nations. The development
aspirations of the Global South will not be achieved in the halls of the
UN; they will only be made real through organised struggle that compels
institutions and states to act.
Alberto Blanco González (OSPAAAL), /Namibia: Power to the People/, 1981.
Courtesy of The Radical Media Archive.
As the year comes to an end, so does the first decade of our existence
as a research institute. We began with the ambition of being the
inter-movement think tank of the Global South, our feet rooted in the
more than two hundred workers’ and peasants’ organisations and political
movements that make up the International Peoples’ Assembly
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network. Over the course of the past decade, we realised that we had two
key tasks: first, to amplify the views of the movements and to stimulate
a debate among them and within society; second, to build a New
Development Theory
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for when our movements come to power and have the obligation to reshape
society and lead us to a better future beyond the fetters of capitalism.
As our mandate grew so did the scope of our work.
For that reason, and because you believe in our mission, we hope that
you will decide to support our work for another year. We depend on your
solidarity to sustain it. There are many ways to contribute:
1. If you would like to join our Tricontinental Intern Brigade, please
write to intern at thetricontinental.org.
2. If you would like to help us with editing and translation work,
please write to volunteers at thetricontinental.org.
3. If you would like to make a financial contribution, please write to
donations at thetricontinental.org. We truly rely on your support to
continue this work.
We hope you will join our Tricontinental community.
Warmly,
Vijay
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Website <www.tricontinental.org>
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