Highlighting inequalities in the histories of human rights: Contestations over justice, needs and rights in the 1970s

Abstract

Abstract This article considers the ways in which concerns about economic equalities, both among and within countries, were taken up in human rights debates of the 1970s and how concerns about economic inequalities impacted on discussions about the possibilities, objectives and conceptions of rights. It shows how scholars and advocates from the global South, concerned about the production of underdevelopment and unequal accumulation, advocated a more ‘structural approach’ to human rights during this period that argued that a just international order was necessary for the realization of rights. The article first considers Third World demands for a New International Economic Order to address inequalities among countries, as well as the potentially conflicting focus on inequalities within countries by the World Bank and its subsequent promotion of a ‘basic needs’ approach to development. Thereafter, it considers how these different approaches to economic inequality were taken up in and influenced human rights debates and frameworks of this period.

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