ABSTRACT
Ethics and human rights are now high on the international development agenda. Although these topics may appear novel to some development researchers and policy-makers, we shall argue in this chapter that it is more accurate to say that these issues are now back on the agenda, reflecting a renewed concern for justice and international responsibilities within the context of globalisation. The United Nations organisations that were created in the aftermath of the Second World War were a manifestation of a powerful moral concern about the well-being of all citizens of the world; and still more explicit was the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. As the colonised countries gained independence, the phenomenon we call ‘development’ became a sort of business: a specialised arena dominated by ‘donor agencies’ dealing with their ‘recipients’, and by professional development experts sharing an arcane language in which fundamental ethical issues were largely absent. In the early years of development assistance, to simplify considerably,1 aid was largely a technical activity, involving the provision of technical assistance and investment funds for infrastructure projects. Soon, economists began to assume a dominant role, both in preparing national development plans and in the appraisal of development projects; they continue to retain this dominant position, but this too is based on technical expertise. For many years, ‘the development business’ was overshadowed by the Cold War which, paradoxically, created an intensely political context for the provision of aid funds while at the same time discouraging explicit mention of politics by development professionals (Ferguson 1994). The competition between East and West led also to a disassociation and even competition between civil and political rights on the one hand, and socioeconomic rights on the other, which has further deepened the rift between the project of development and its moral foundations. It was not until the 1990s, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, that it became acceptable – and more recently de rigueur – for development organisations to address non-technical issues. But these were presented as questions of governance – corruption and public management; and the debate was primarily about conditions within
poor countries. It has taken still longer for issues of global justice to become of central concern, including reflection on the role of advanced economies and their citizens. But following the signature of the Millennium Declaration (including also the Millennium Development Goals), with its renewed focus on the challenge of global poverty, one may legitimately claim that development is now again seen as an ethical issue – a question of global justice – calling for multilateral institutions to act not only as expert and efficient, but also responsible institutions in a moral sense. This renewed concern with global norms, however, comes at a time of neo-liberal economic globalisation. The commodification of most aspects of human life and the ethic of the market clash head-on with global morality, not only regarding extreme poverty but now also climate change. (It is abundantly clear that not only is this a hugely important global issue, but it is the poor who will suffer most severely.) Complex issues such as extreme poverty and climate change cannot be solved by nation-states or individual people; they require coordinated action at many levels, from local to global. To reconcile the many competing interests will require concern for solidarity and equity and also radical changes in the behaviour, values and attitudes of the non-poor. But even if the ‘development business’ began only in the second half of the
last century, the sorts of questions – of ethics and human rights – that need to be confronted go far back in history. What is new is the creation of development institutions; and with increased globalisation there is now a growing interest in the question of global responsibilities. We see the emergence amongst philosophers, social scientists and activists of a fast growing body of work on global justice, and an emergent concern with formulating a feasible and politically credible account of global responsibilities for global problems: how to achieve a fair globalisation, or alternative globalisations. In this chapter, therefore, our purpose is to trace the progression from the
origins of development ethics to today’s concern with global ethics, universal human rights, global justice and responsibilities as they relate to poverty. Our primary focus is on ideas and authors that relate directly to the institutions and ‘business’ of development, complementing discussions about cosmopolitanism in international relations and globalisation studies. We seek also to reveal some significant underlying themes that may be omitted in standard debate in development bureaucracies when dealing with questions of ethics and human rights in their work: the place of religion and (sometimes radical) religious and spiritual ideas; a view of ethics as activism and social critique; the relationship between ethics and politics, and between ethics and economics. The idea that extreme poverty, wherever it occurs, is an ethical challenge
for all, a matter of global justice – this has existed for a long time. But the proponents of this view lacked the power to have their ideas acted upon; they were not viewed as ‘experts’ or legitimate sources of authority. Their ideas were therefore not ‘embedded’ in relevant organisations. But the time is now ripe to address such basic moral issues. Ethics is about self-reflection,
about the possibility to envision and to realise alternative futures that are more fair to all. Global institutions have a key role to play in making ethically grounded choices. Although there is a tendency, especially in the literature on human rights, to place the burden of responsibility for achieving justice on nation-states, the more recent movements and scholarship on global justice and responsibilities for global issues such as poverty (and more recently climate change) are pointing to global institutions to use their power, expertise and political position to be the pioneers in promoting global justice. Our own normative position is that multilateral organisations are ‘response-able’: they are particularly well placed to act by virtue of the powers that we, the people of the world, have given them: the economic resources and expertise that enable them to change the world; and the political legitimacy they enjoy by virtue of their mandates. Rather than simply blaming these global actors for their mistakes, we argue for a forward looking construction of responsibility. Multilateral organisations are responsible for protecting people from poverty – but are they ready for the task?
