Poverty and Human Rights in Africa

The International Journal of Human Rights Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2010, 13–33

Poverty and human rights in Africa: historical dynamics and the case for economic social and cultural rights A. Byaruhanga Rukooko Makerere University, Uganda Although the relationship between poverty and human rights is only recently beginning to be examined it has always been dynamically intertwined. Poverty is a relative concept but its intrusion into human dignity is unmistakable. This article argues that human rights are strong tools for fighting poverty. Traditionally in Africa, poverty and wealth were communal and communality defined their existence. At the same time poverty in Africa is interrelated with diverse factors, such as racism, the impact if colonialism, and in the current era of globalisation, the operation of multi-national companies.

Poverty is also highly related to governance and typically the African big-men syndrome and so-called ‘irrational belief’ structures. Although the UN Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights may not be a panacea for progress, if combined with other sets of human rights, it is a suitable weapon to combat poverty.

Keywords: Africa; human rights; poverty; poverty eradication; historical dynamics

Introduction Although poverty is the single term that too easily defines Africa, equally, human rights violations have for a long time been as definitive of the same definiendum – Africa.

However, interestingly, poverty is not always linked to human rights. It is as if the two concepts are separate categories, although it is argued here that there is a deep and dynamic relationship between the two.

For a long time, and in much of the Western media and in many intellectual exchanges, Africa has been portrayed as an encapsulation of, if not of biting poverty, widespread human suffering and displacement. It is a continent signaled by armed conflict, corruption, mismanagement, economic migration, hunger or lack of access to education or shelter, or to drinking water and other essentials for a decent living. But while what is being portrayed is lack of basic necessities, and therefore it is poverty that is being expressed, we also know that these basic needs are an integral part of human rights and their absence logically implies undermining human dignity.

However, a few questions that are pertinent to this state of affairs arise. In the first instance, is Africa really poor? What is poverty, and why is there reluctance in defining poverty in terms of human rights? Then, what accounts for poverty in Africa? How does poverty relate to human rights or justice? Whose rights are violated? Who are the central actors in this poverty creation and human rights violations? How then, can poverty be

Email: brukooko@arts.mak.ac.ug

ISSN 1364-2987 print/ISSN 1744-053X online # 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13642980902933654 http://www.informaworld.com

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eradicated? Whose responsibility is it? Who is the subject of these rights? These and many other questions need urgent response if poverty and its related consequences are to be confronted in African contexts.

This article attempts to identify the dynamics behind the embarrassing poverty situation in Africa and how these are related to human rights. In order to address these issues, the article begins with discussing poverty and human rights. It is contended that the problem of poverty and human rights violations began with some unfounded perceptions about Africa, which also prompted the subsequent historical impoverishment including but not limited to slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, globalisation, African ‘big-man’ and selfish leadership, African cultural beliefs and their impoverishing effects as well as their role in violation of human rights of African people. Moral questions in relation to human rights especially of responsibility, transparency and accountability are being raised.

Finally, the article argues for re-appreciation, recognition and implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCRs) and the need for creating pressure upon African governments to implement this treaty. Multinational companies operating in Africa should also be pressurised to support this endeavour, and Western powers should comply with the provisions of the treaty in dealing with African states as partners in aid and commerce.

Clarification on major concepts Poverty The philosophical conceptualisation of poverty in terms of social injustice and hence a negative aspect, is recent. In Greek philosophy poverty is not particularly negative. Thales, the Pythagoreans and Socrates saw poverty not in negative terms; instead, wealth was. It seems to have become a serious issue as recently as the nineteenth century with Karl Marx focusing on the material conditions and also highlighting the question of social injustice under capitalism. The biblical conceptualisation of poverty seems supportive of poverty. Jesus for instance, taught that heaven will be more easily accessed by the poor than by the rich.1 This thinking seemed to have persisted to the late mediaeval age. The question of human dignity on earth is in terms of poverty. Our current thinkers have defined it in terms of Gross National Income (GNI) per capita: the GNI Atlas method, inflation, export of goods, infant mortality rate, primary education completion rate, etc., which make the poor unintelligible.

Poverty is a highly relative term and the prefix ‘extreme’ may have little or no genuine meaning for those living in poverty. Poverty is a hybrid concept entailing produced or lived experiences constructed out of specific actions and struggles, compromises and temporarily settled relations of cooperating and competing social actors in relation to material goods. It is both a state of being and a process which depicts material or spiritual absence representing the world view of particular actors. It may change depending on different circumstances and standards. If one saw traditional Africans as poor because they did not have bungalows or spare money for dogs, Africans would respond by pointing at poverty of human values in the case of where too many resources are spent on dogs rather than human beings.2 If one argued that Africans were poor because they were not educated, they may respond by pointing at their numerous cattle they have, adding that the reason why one would go to school is because they want to acquire wealth, which they already have in the form of cattle or much land, or, as they traditionally believed, the number of children they had produced if not the women they had married. In recent times, President Museveni has repeatedly encouraged Ugandans to produce increasingly more children.3

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In April 2007, the Bushmen of Kalahari in Botswana won a human rights case against the government for having uprooted them from their cultural environment and cultural life, including a life of the bush and hunting.4 In this case, the rate of primary school completion has little meaning or other parameters may fall by the way side.5 Indeed, the extensive research on poverty confirms this view. In Haiti, while some said that a poor person was somebody who could not speak French, others including a former president Manigat said that it was a person who did not have access to Western culture.6 Yet, in some cases, poverty was associated with race.7 It may be argued that poverty is a set of social, economic and spiritual conditions that allows an individual to make choices from among available alternatives. This may involve relationships, some of which are expanding or curtailing those choices, and the impact they may have on the individual or groups. Whether a people are moving naked or not; that they can make this choice among many alternatives is sufficient, because alternatives presuppose the existence of what makes a person satisfied or happy. For instance, the Karimajong of Uganda will shake away the clothes that they wear while in towns and have no problem remaining naked in their natural environment. Ultimately, the question of happiness may be critical in defining poverty but, if this understanding is adopted further problems will emerge deriving especially from what constitutes happiness. The Karimajong of northern Uganda have generally abandoned education for cattle raiding much as many Americans went to Iraq for oil8 and have done for several years in different parts of the world.9 The Karimajong may be operating in different social, cultural contexts but they are both morally reprehensible, and perhaps Americans could be more culpable than the Karimajong.10 It is a different value. The consumerist, competitive markets and/or monopolies through patenting and the rest are all irrelevant to some people, perhaps the majority of Africans.

However, the contribution of Amartya Sen sheds more light on the manifestation of poverty which then widens our understanding of it. In his enunciation of the concept of ‘small mercies’ Amartya Sen points out that by its very nature, poverty creates and imposes another problem upon its own victims; that is, victims of poverty are so compromised that they cannot understand and mobilise against it. They are unable and unwilling to stand and demand international action against it and, later on, even think of possible remedies. Accordingly, the consciousness of the poor is that they will often ‘adjust their aspirations and desires to the little that is feasible’,11 which, in my view, is the essence of the false consciousness; that is, poor people will easily accept the minimum rather than demand the maximum; or even sometimes they may support their oppressor. Besides, they lack skills of hard bargaining because of their accustomed failure, something which predisposes them to making defeatist compromises with the harsh reality,12 instead of confronting the harsh reality head on. This thinking is again reflected in his later work when he wrote thus: A chronic underdog may become so used to her deprivation and so hopeless about it, that she may have an illusion of normality about her state of deprivation and she may also respond by cutting down her desires and by learning to take some small pleasures in very small mercies (which would have the effect of making the deprivations look less awful in the scale of utilities.13

I further agree with Sen in his view that the end result of this false consciousness is that acute inequalities survive precisely by making allies out of the deprived to deprive them even more than they are already deprived. In other words, the deprivation of citizens makes them inadvertent potential sustainers, reproducers and enhancers of the system of their own impoverishment, through their rulers or simply, the powerful in their society.

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In fact, they join the exploiters to fight against their own interests including expanded human dignity, in most cases by praising and dancing as well as voting for their exploiters as they perpetuate their own poverty. Thus the poor do not only accept the legitimacy of an unequal order but they also become implicit accomplices.14 This relational and systemic definition of poverty echoes the century old view expressed by Charles Darwin that: ‘If the misery of our poor be caused not by laws of nature, but by our own institutions, great is our sin’.15 It also underlines the human agency in the process of impoverishment and wealth creation. There is planning and implementing of strategies that create poverty or wealth. But if this is the case, then the reverse is possible by the same human agency because they have better means to reverse the impoverishing processes. Otherwise, the conditions of the poor including having a poor self-image, self-consciousness, ignorance of the correct struggle-paths and their defeatist attitudes are not and will never be useful to fight poverty – a negation of human dignity.

Consequently, taking into account the views of both Amartya Sen and Wamala, the standards of choice and happiness also become doubtable as effective definitions of poverty because due to false consciousness or ignorance, the poor could choose to support their own exploiters and tormentors. In Uganda, it is interesting to observe the pattern of voting in urban areas compared to rural poor communities. Whereas the rural areas do support the ruling party, the urban areas seem to support the opposition parties, and yet we know for a social fact that urban areas easily access information about their exploiters much more than the rural less educated citizens.16 Consequently, we may still ask, are there objective characteristics of poverty? Could it be true that a Karimajong who has rejected education and the Bushman who has run away from modern life to return to his earlier bush life are wrong about their choices? Can we define poverty for them when they are comfortable with their choices? If they are wrong, why are they so? My view is that some of the answers lie in the answers already given

by Sen, Pogge, Wamala and Darwin and possibly others. However, these authors do not tell us what poverty boils down to in the context of a Karimajong who abandons education for cattle raiding and the Bushman who abandons modern life.

Wamala would seem to imply that if we did not define the rights of the poor, we would also not have any more legitimate imperative to defend the rights of animals or children,17 because both need a third party (advocate) for their rights against their oppressor. Consequently, we have the obligation to promote the rights of the poor especially against want even though they should choose to live under conditions we consider poor. This also creates its own intractable problems both at conceptual and practical levels. How can we force morally responsible individuals who have chosen to run the bush to live in waterheated houses, sleep in mosquito nets, clean their hands with soap instead of cleaning themselves with leaves that are abundant? What happens to the underlying principle of freedom that underlies human rights? How can we impose our right consciousness? How morally right would we be, if we did so?

Thomas Pogge came close to resolving this difficulty but he ended leaving it intact.18 He identified three levels of moral responsibility in terms of protecting and promoting the rights of other people. The ‘minimalist interactional’ or ‘libertarianism’ which diminishes our moral responsibility because we did not cause the deprivations, and the ‘maximalist interactional’ or the utilitarian of rights which holds that everybody is responsible irrespective of our causal relationship to the deprived. The third is the ‘institutional understanding’ of human rights where he avoids the minimalist-libertarian and maximalist positions of human rights and takes the stance of collective withdrawing of support from an oppressive structure.19 Unfortunately, Pogge does not deal with the issues at hand, namely,

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what do we do with people who have chosen to abandon what we think is the correct path of development, whether they have a ‘false consciousness’ or not? My answer though not without loopholes is that we could take recourse to human rights theory of interdependence and a human rights based approach as will be argued later on in the article.

African View In African traditions, poverty has often been conceived as based on cosmological positions where God was on top with the highest vital force.20 It was God who gave land, water, food, rain and other property like cattle and goats much as it was Him who took away all the wealth if He chose to.21 Although God acted independently in offering this wealth, it was nonetheless believed that it was mediated through a hierarchy of lower forces like founders of tribes, elders, male householders, witch doctors, animals, plants and other lesser beings. For instance, no one believed that he or she could get rich without the intervention of some higher force. Either it would be his/her grandfather or some other relative, or hierarchically powerful that intervened. If it was an incident involving or resulting in impoverishment or a death, then it was caused by some other person who did not wish you well. As they say in my language, ‘tiharo omufu ayefereire’ which literally translates as ‘no one dies of natural causes’. He or she must be bewitched or else no death should have occurred. For the whole of two years (2006 and 2007), the local paper (Orumuri) was continuously writing about oral stories of how different people reported to be going under the lakes and other water bodies and obtaining wealth with the help of the most powerful witchcraft.

True or not, the belief was considered important and the concerned people behaved as if it was true. Indeed, there must have been a lot of money spent on witches and witchdoctors’ shrines for people to access the wealth hidden under the lakes!

In a more serious case, this mythical thinking leads many people to commit heinous crimes like human sacrifice for the purpose of securing wealth or bidding of recurrent events construed as undermining success.22 In a sermon, the Catholic Archbishop of Kampala, Cypirian Lwanga said: . . .despite professing the same Christian faith, divisions in ideologies and interests has slowed the promotion of fair trade among nations, adding, that witchcraft has deluded Africa and made it live in the past, ignoring new scientific discoveries and in the process promoting, disease, revenge and violence.23

Consequently, poverty was not accidental or even caused by less work or poor methods of work or bad planning of an individual or community. It was always attributed to some malignant force. This, then, made poor individuals disconnected from causal responsibility for their poverty. There was somebody else there to blame for the poverty and its consequent suffering from it. Since the cause of poverty was suspected or claimed to be known to be of external forces, the response was to seek remedial measures in a similar measure, that is, to the world of external forces. This could take several forms.

Typical manifestations would be sacrifice, manipulating plants or animals, seeking the intervention of witchdoctors, seeking revenge, harming or even killing. In my view, mythical thinking is largely one of the deepest and widest live aspects among many Africans, in West, East and South Africa. The killing of albinos in Tanzania, the sacrifice of children in many parts of Africa, the raping of children in South Africa as a cure of AIDS tells it all.

Yet, property or poverty was communal but managed through different forces and therefore if the community was poor, then the individuals were poor and if the community was

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rich, the individuals were rich. Under this ideological consideration everybody was cared for, much as everybody cared for others; land was accessible to everyone who wanted to use it. If food was plenty, it was shared among the members of that society. Care of children was a responsibility of everyone. Education was as a communal responsibility as health was. Hence, the old African adage: ‘I am because we are’. It must be pointed out nonetheless, that this conception is fast disappearing due to the globalising, liberalising, modernising and capitalist effects.24 Thus, although there may be communal support for a poor person or poor groups and although government action may improve conditions for the less fortunate members of African societies, poverty is becoming increasingly individualised. For instance, whereas in the early sixties and seventies it was common for wider family (clan) to contribute to the school fees of any one of the children, in current times, it is increasingly becoming a rare practice. So, whether one has fees or not, it is a private affair. Important to appreciate, however, is that in both Western and African conceptions poverty is a relational concept whose experience is dependent on many actors both human and inhuman. It is also appreciable to note that it is the strong that are determinant in impoverishing or wealth creating processes.

Human rights ‘Human rights’ is currently a well-known concept whose core content is dignity of the human person. Not that it is free of controversies, because dignity may not easily be defined as a so-called ‘high value’. Who apportions it to human beings? How do we measure this value? Whereas Africans conceived human beings in terms of their communities, the West saw them in terms of individuals. If it is conceived in terms of legal definition, how do we account for a century old legalised apartheid system that operated in South Africa? How should we conceive the right to gainful employment as a universal right in reference to the elderly and infants?

Like poverty, ‘human rights’ is a hybrid concept that is a product of struggles and compromises. It grows out of lived and constructed experience that fortunately is generally accepted and applied with a definite meaning developed through legal and moral circumscriptions. Even as a legal or moral or social concept, it is a relational concept of not only protecting the weak against the strong, but it is also intended to protect individuals from unwarranted intrusion into their lives by the state but at the same time to motivate human beings to achieve the best possible of their personality. However, even if human rights are considered as universal, inalienable and not granted by anyone, Africans suffered the shortage of this conception and that they were as entitled to human rights as others for a long time. Of all countries, the British government has debated and agreed to abjure human rights in the face of, and in the name of, the process of fighting terrorism.25 So how universal and inalienable are they?

The African traditional view of rights or entitlements was also defined within the communal ethic just like poverty. Thus, the entitlements and the attendant moral obligations were aligned to the organic and dynamic character of the hierarchy of external forces.

Within this dynamism, individual entitlements or rights were mediated. In the processes of guaranteeing basic entitlements like food, shelter, water, health and other needs, the community bore the obligation. This however, did not totally exclude forms of brutality like slavery and violence, discrimination as well as looting or destroying of other people’s, property and therefore causing depravity.26 It is important to note too, that this traditional context of dynamics of entitlements is fast disappearing as it is being replaced by the Western liberal model. By globalising forces of

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which technology and liberalism are the strongest, governments and the civil society have spread the modern human rights to the erstwhile traditional societies.

Human rights and poverty linked While ‘human rights’ derives from human dignity as a human value, poverty entails absence of human dignity. If poverty is defined as lack of choices, no poor person can be dignified since the option of choice is restricted and constrains the freedom to choose.

While poverty is about lack of choices, human rights imply the process of empowering to make choices. And while poverty involves a negation of human rights, human rights is a negation of poverty. Poverty is disempowering while human rights is a form of empowering. Whereas we may talk of ‘duty bearers’ in the context of human rights, no one seems to accept to be a duty bearer in the case of poverty. This is the case although an increasing understanding of the justiciability of the ICESCR implies that the duty bearers are being defined.27 In addition, both human rights and poverty are social processes acting in opposition to one another. Within the context of human rights literature, poverty is presented as ‘freedom from want’ on which the ICESCR and the Right to Development were built, which also suggests that poverty is ‘a condition of want’.28 These situations are not states of actuality but rather of potentiality; that is to say, they are continuously changing in response to the changing circumstances of the person or people in question; if they are refugees for instance, their poverty may be different from the poverty of people living with disability.

Or even the challenges facing a person living with disability in Canada (as a developed country) may be different from a person living in Somalia (less developed, unstable country). These circumstances affect the conception and realisation of human rights. In short, they are ever changing.

However, a more adequate perception of poverty is that it is a form of social injustice.

When seen in this context, it betrays the multilayer causal relations that produce and sustain it as well as its impact and also indicate possible ways of designing propitious responses to its effects. Further, it becomes easy to identify, and may be able to access the instrumentality that is involved and therefore move closer to questions of moral responsibility, duties and culpability, thereby displaying its human rights realm.29 This connection is important from another point of view. If economic, social and cultural rights are to be progressively realised, it presupposes the inherent material or economic or even infrastructural considerations necessary for the realisation of human rights have to be in place before the rights in question are realised.30 Dynamics of poverty in Africa Perceptions about Africans Perceptions influence attitudes which also influence behaviour, choices and actions. These perceptions could be considered as a form of knowledge, whether true or false. If such knowledge is false, it is likely to lead to wrong actions. Africa has been seen in negative images to date since time immemorial. As a consequence, plans, agendas and actions based on these knowledge(s) or images have been implemented. But as Broch-Due and Schroeder31 demonstrate and as Anywanu32 argued earlier that such knowledge creates confusion.

Broch-Due takes us through a historical concatenation of different images about Africa and is able to show the contradictory character of the views from different authors

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or speakers from the eighteenth century to the present and she contends that the origin of the problem is racialism.33 It may not be entirely true, but it cannot be rejected altogether.

The Western world constructed negative images that became ideological springboards for relating to Africans. The initial consequences of these images were the destruction of the African identity through the three elements of racism, slavery and colonialism although she thinks the first of these was the most pernicious.34 To date, the dynamics of globalisation, liberalism and neo-imperialism are concretising the effects of racialism.

Racism Accordingly, racism and colonialism are guilty of having caused the whole problem, having forced the Negro into a schizophrenic situation and into existential deviation.35 For instance, whereas one of the most respected philosophers, David Hume, was convinced that Negroes were naturally inferior to the Whites the worse racist Comte De Gobineau claimed thus: The majority of human races are unable to be ever civilized, unless they mix others of sentiments; not only do these races not possess the necessary internal spring to push them forward on the scale of development, but moreover. . .no external agent would be able to fertilize the organic sterility however energetic this agent might be otherwise. While the thinking faculties of a Negro are mediocre or even nil. . ..To these he adds an instability of humours, variability of sentiments which nothing can fix, and which for him annuls both virtue and vice.36

However, racism was not a one way traffic. Negroes like Marcus Garvey, Franz Fanon, Aime C’esare, and others preached pure Negroism or Africanism or even blackness of human beings as preferable. Racism still exists and I have experienced it at the entry points to European countries.37 Slavery Nonetheless, the perceptions and conceptions of Europeans about Africa motivated first the treatment of Africans as savages and capturing them as slaves. They were good only as tradable commodities and also exploitable human beings without reward as slaves. The process of capturing, transporting, and exploiting of African slaves left an unparalleled level of systematic, long-term brutality that was ever unleashed upon Africans by the white and other races. Lauren reports: Nowhere were the violations of human rights – however defined – more blatant or brutal. The debasement of human beings from living people into mere property and their forceful capture, restraint with chains or neck irons (like dogs), violent branding and torture, and life-long enslavement for themselves and their descendants dramatically revealed one of the most vicious and repulsive chapters in all of history.38

Not only did this heinous trade reduce the Africans to purchasable commodities, but it also offered free labour to the white industrialists. This therefore contributed to making the colonialists richer and capable of investing their riches, but while at the same time impoverishing the slaves and their communities; this, in turn, left a very serious mark on the confidence and other emotional aspects on the African population including seeing themselves as not human rights claimants but as objects of aid or any other support. In short, they lost confidence in themselves, having been subjugated to ruthless conditions.

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Colonialism In the past, I have argued that reference to colonialism as a way of explaining African social problems is not adequate because it is a long time since colonialists left.39 However, I begin to realise that colonialists did not only sow the oppressive structures but they continue to sustain, entrench, and “sophisticate”, and making them overwhelming and ignoring them hardly solves the problem of depravity in Africa. As said earlier, it was perceived that Africa had inferior civilisation, little technology and was hardly civilisable and therefore, morally, it was the duty or burden of the European to civilise other races, especially Africans. Much as this argument seems morally justifiable we should not forget positive results of colonialism like widening accessibility to education, health, work, shelter and others. Nonetheless, it turned out that the colonisers were more interested in exploiting and creating wealth out of the colonies, while at the same time designing them as economic satellites.

This was even more direct as the Western immigrants forcefully took over African lands and started farming, stashed away the returns to their mother lands, accumulated huge capital and strengthened their linkages with the metropolitan. Thus, while the colonies produced most of the raw materials and sold them for a small value, the colonisers sold back finished goods at a good profit. This system led to a number of negative effects on the African population, including forfeiture of African cultural heritage, religions, valuable beliefs, social cohesion, family unity, and many other positive values that had been achieved over a long time and had therefore been a dependable guide for them. Apart from the transfer of political, administrative and social systems which created social classes, colonialists attempted to create white men out of Africans, and to create a new identity for the colonised, something that was never achieved. After all, a black skin remained a different colour from the white one without diminishing their humanity.

Kaunda suggested that: In fact Colonialism, for all its benefits, devalued Man. It created elite societies in which man’s worth was determined by an irrelevant biological detail – skin pigmentation. And even more serious, the colonialist set out to destroy our self confidence. They dinned into the African mind that the idea that we were primitive, backward, and degraded, and but for their presence amongst us, we would be living like animals.40

However, is it possible to de-construct these colonial structures, and trace responsibilities of the societal effects they produced? In other words could the beneficiaries of colonialism compensate Africa? Or is this a matter that should be forgotten?

Neo-colonialism and multi-nationals Before the end of the Second World War, a secret meeting was held by the four Great Powers (United States, Britain, Soviet Union and China) at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944, with a view to influencing the political, economic and cultural direction of the world.41 Accordingly, the political and economic power relations were set up and mediated through the United Nations. The allies sit on the most powerful body, the Security Council and therefore define their power space in the world. Although human rights were eventually accepted and allowed in the structure of the United Nations, it is well acknowledged that the United States and Great Britain together with Russia had originally rejected inclusion of human rights in the Charter of the United Nations.42 Alongside this power game strategy, the same powers started the Bretton Woods institutions of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that have been instrumental in determining the direction of the

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economic agendas in the world, which obviously serves the interests whether economic or political, of those who set it up. This is supported by other sister formations including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD) all of which share core values politically and economically. They all subscribe to liberalisation which includes free trade and competition for power even though it is bound by technical and legal conditions and restrictions that open limitlessly the gate to Western investment in any part of the world, but in the same measure closes it for Africa.

We are now fully getting to grips with the realities of international trade law and its effect on food accessibility for the poor or third world countries especially through the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and US intellectual property law. Allowing the biotechnological companies into developing countries to patent food crops, seeds, and other genetic materials creates, excludes and further impoverishes already poor communities of the third world. Lucy William lets us know that: Legal rules significantly affect the distribution of income assets and power. . . legal rules are chosen frequently to benefit the interests of parties and/or nations in power. Specifically, the background rules of property (now including intellectual property), family, contract, legal capacity, and tort law partially create and perpetuate wealth imbalances within and between states.43

Therefore, what is being claimed here is that whether it was during colonialism or in the current globalised economy or between states or intra- states, legal rules are deeply implicated in maintaining and strengthening status quo power and wealth inequalities.44 Examples abound in Uganda. During the colonial consolidation, the British through the Buganda Agreement of 1900 awarded and bribed the local chiefs with huge chunks of land known as ‘mailo’ to support their interests. This land decision has to date, remained a source of political and economic problems in Uganda.45 The power of multinational companies over the world Liberalism implies that the state should not interfere in economic activities, rather, private players should be allowed to trade in the most profitable manner. It also entails that every part of the world should be accessed through investment and trading. Physical borders have little financial meaning and for the developing states they may even have little political meaning. This is also a general characteristic of globalisation. But in real terms, it means that those who have capital are those who invest, and it is the multi-nationals of the West and now, increasingly China, Russia and India who are moving across the whole world but, in the process, not only are they exploiting the resources of the poor countries but they are also supporting conflict and violence, all of which are likely to contribute to poverty.46 Moreover, they have capacity to transfer their capital rapidly and therefore control investment flows as much as they can use their financial power to undermine state authority through either bribery of government officials or through threats of withdrawal of either funding or certain important services. As is well known, multi-nationals can support dictatorial states, as in the case of the French oil company Total’s activities in Burma,47 Shell Company in Nigeria48 and Mining companies in Congo.49 There is abundant literature about the behaviour of multinational corporations.50 It ranges from the spirit of the law by which these corporations operate, to supporting governments to violate the rights of citizens like in Burma, from Nigeria where protestors are killed to Colombia where the British Petroleum Company sponsored death squads.51 In all these

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cases, the helpless citizens are left without protection, not even from their own state.

Nigeria’s Saro Wiwa is still well-known much as the current standoff between Shell and the militants in the Niger Delta is. They have the capacity to cause conflict which ends in poverty and deprivation. China too has become a factor in encouraging multinational wrong doing in the developing world as is the case in Sudan. Can they take responsibility for their actions not only in terms of treatment of their own workers and handling other human rights issues? Can they re-invest some of the profits in the regions where they make the profits? Who is going to hold them accountable? The so-called self-regulatory ‘license for social investment’ is welcome but not effective. It is being encouraged that private companies should adopt ethical trade that involves recognition of setting up voluntary standards governing developing country workplaces, and communities involved in the global supply chain.52 Globalisation The globalisation phenomenon has been going on since the time of empire building and the exploration era of Europe. The Cold War that divided the world into two sections may have hampered the momentum of the globalising force but did not stop it. As the super-power rivalries went apace, an ever expanding market, new forms of production and innovation in information technology continued to strengthen these forces which eventually led to the victory of the West over the East. This new situation opened the way for universal liberalism and human rights implementation. For example, by the help of ‘infopressure’ and ‘infoactivity’ which normally become heightened during political turbulence and other instabilities, the amount of human rights information that is generated becomes quite extensive. The work of NGOs and the hyper intensive and extensive human rights activities of other players are going on at various levels of society which imply increasing human rights knowledge, awareness and far reaching demand as well as implementation for human rights.53 Nonetheless, the same forces which have been credited for globalising human rights have, at the same time, also been accused of being responsible for widening the gap between the rich and the poor as well as inspiring backlashes from threatened cultural beliefs and ways of life.54 It may also be said that terrorism is the direct consequence of globalisation. In my view, this point is part of the last one above, but most likely, all of them fuse into one consequence – of reckless economic pursuit of the West, whose motivation existed at the time of colonial expansionism and probably, it is the tools that have changed.55 ‘African big men’ syndrome During colonialism, many African leaders were trained in the art and management of the state and civil service. In the process they discovered that colonialism was about the subjugating of people and the accumulation of wealth. Thus when the colonialists left, their African heirs turned against their subjects with repression and exploitation within the institutional frameworks of colonial oppression. The African heirs worked with their erstwhile rulers to build strong structures for their retention of power as well as exploitation of their subjects. The idea of citizenship was already forgotten – namely that citizens would not any more command a range of obligations upon the rulers, and instead, rapid accumulation which was mainly based on corruption and embezzlement supported by manipulation of political power for their selfish interests flourished, hence building their patrimonial

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structures.56 They chose to defy accountability standards and assert their power limitlessly including disdaining rule of law, integrity, human rights and destroying the pillars of democracy while, in many cases, cherishing militarism. They became stronger than established institutions and hence the name ‘African big men’ not only because they accumulated ill-gotten wealth, but because they became more powerful than their countries. The notion of leadership as service was long abandoned. Thus the notion of African Big Men Syndrome has come to denote the resented, corrupt, oppressive, and feared power hungry rulers with their prote´ge´, who not only accumulate wealth, but also use that wealth to perpetuate themselves in power, a clear prebendalist state as presented by Michelsen.57 Government authority and resources were treated as private property.

Thus in Amin’s Uganda, it was the ‘Conquer of the British’ or ‘Big Daddy’ in Mobutu’s Congo, it was ‘Kuku wa Zabanga’ (or the only cock of hens) in Banda’s Malawi, it was ‘the conqueror’ or ‘the saviour’ in Moi’s Kenya, it was ‘Baba wa Taifa’ which means ‘father of the nation’ or ironically ‘Mutukufu’ which means the holy one, in Museveni’s Uganda. Still in Amin’s Uganda ‘mafuta mingi’ which referred to a person with a lot of money, is quite informative. African leaders in some cases became bigger and wealthier than the nations they lead after looting the wealth of their citizens. The problem that ensues is how to protect this ill-begotten wealth and their staying in power at all cost. This is probably among the strongest reasons for the depravity of African people and the associated human rights violations. Indeed, on 17 September 2007, both the UN Secretary General and the World Bank President revealed that African leaders were stealing US$148 billion each year.58 This factor adds hot pepper to a wound because then the web of rapacious capital is complete.

From another tangent, in most cases, the ‘big men’ create a rigid ring-fence of elite, praise-singers and self-seekers that don’t hamper the leaders from seeing the squalid reality of their citizens but make them (the leaders) seem invincible. But at the time of departure, the economy and political structure violently collapses because all the supporting democratic shock absorbers have been eradicated. The cases of Ghana, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and others are adequate illustrations.59 The immediate period after the ‘big-men’ is more often of want in terms of food, education, health care, stability, clothing, healthy environment, all of which define poverty, especially if they are engulfed in violence. In fact, even long before they have collapsed, their rule is characteristic of violations of human rights: disrespect of the rule of law, corruption, violence, mafia-like operations that easily lead to impoverishment.60 Unfortunately, in recent times the ‘big man syndrome’ has become more entrenched with the formation of sub regional or regional groups similar to mafia that are intent on sustaining power by mutual support and interdependence. In particular, Quadaffi refers to Mugabe as ‘comrade’, Museveni supported Kibaki after a failed election and dramatic post-election violence, and he is still the only president to have congratulated Kibaki even though clearly all the conditions showed that the election had been flawed. In a serious move, for instance, the SADAC leaders led by Thabo Mbeki shocked many observers when they embraced Mugabe instead of breaking with his regime for his violenceridden rule and failure to organise fair elections. As Du Bois wrote in reference to the support of Mugabe: By that single act, they demonstrated that they paid lip service to democracy and human rights, that they prioritize the survival of their political caste system above the desperate plight of millions of their fellow Africans who Mugabe has turned into refugees and that as a group, they are as detached from their fellow Africans as Nkrumah and the earlier elites were.61

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My view, therefore, is that the problem promises to become bigger since the major culprits of election rigging are often the ruling ‘big men’, there is fear that the possibility of fair and free elections and thereby surrendering power peacefully has been sacrificed at the altar of regional blocks and mutual support by the big men – they have become bigger and more powerful. I am, for instance, convinced that if the regional leaders wanted the election matter of Zimbabwe resolved more fairly, it would have been possible.

Irrational cultural beliefs Many African people still believe in superstition and other irrational beliefs. These beliefs tend to disorient and confuse understanding of reality and therefore hamper effective planning and the making of effective decisions. Many examples could be mentioned. At the early stage of the erupting of HIV/AIDS, many people quickly thought and acted as if it was witchcraft. A lot of resources in terms of financial resources, time, human labour, knowledge acquisition, transmission and general awareness were wasted and hampered by witchcraft. This belief about AIDS still exists, and of course with dire consequences.

Another example is a belief that unless a people follow their traditions, they are bound to die away or be exterminated. The Karimajong, Samburu and Pokot ethnic groups in north western Kenya and north eastern Uganda were still held down by the inertia of obsolete cultural practices.62 The groups believe that cattle-rustling is a legitimate way of life because other people owning cattle must have stolen it from them, and it is their duty to retrieve it. Another important cultural belief and tradition is that women ought not to be actors in the management of society, as politicians, corporate managers, etc. In my view, these beliefs and traditions are an essential component of the historical dynamics hampering development in much of Africa.

In general therefore, the above are the major forces responsible for the deprivation of Africa. These forces started with racism but became the core for acting, and relating to the world in terms of political and economic power. They contributed to leaving Africans at the lowest level of development. These dynamics seem to be overwhelming for African countries that try to eliminate poverty. Africa gets poorer by the day and there are urgent needs for finding some propitious mechanism that will respond to these dynamics of poverty in Africa. In this context; what are roles and contributions of a human rights framework?

A human rights response More than half a century after the United Nations Charter was promulgated and after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and following the Second World War, the human rights agenda has acted as a moral guide of world order, governance, moral and normative standards, international law and international, national and individual interactions.63 It has entered the life of groups, communities, neighbours, families, workers and academic disciplines and research. It is noteworthy that the United Nations has passed over one hundred conventions, resolutions, declarations and recommendations relating to the observation, protection and promotion of human rights.

As already mentioned, the end of the Cold War heralded and increased the momentum of the human rights agenda, particularly because the East –West divide had always hampered debate and agreement on human rights content and direction of implementation.

Whereas the West emphasised the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the East insisted on the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Africa often

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insisted on the Right to Self Determination and Right to Development. This debate undermined the implementation and realisation of human rights internationally.64 Regional initiatives have indicated progress. In Europe much has been achieved. There is also much achievement in this direction in other geographical areas.65 The Organisation of African Unity was able to establish the African Charter for Human and Peoples Rights in 1981. The African Union has established internal review mechanisms. The East African Federation attempts are also incorporating human rights instruments and institutions. It is however, a matter of concern that Asia has not been able to produce a single human rights document.66 In Uganda, in particular, the instruments, institutions and activities related to human rights are almost overly. The constitution among other things had human rights laws, as it created the Uganda Human Rights Commission and other complementary bodies.

Human rights also influenced other laws and supported human rights initiatives, especially the civil society. This is a trend that is evident in other countries in the region. In 2004, Makerere University senate approved the teaching of human rights among others across subjects to be taught in all disciplines and departments including veterinary medicine. It is also becoming clear that many universities in east Africa are launching human rights programmes in various ways. Non-government and all civil society organisations are vigorously expanding the space of promotion of human rights.

In short, human rights have become a tool of measuring civilised behaviour and a positive way of realising and fulfilling human potential. The success of recognition and observance could vary from one territory to another or from time to time, and indeed, in some situations very ugly violations are still taking place, but this does not take away the fact that human rights have become a guiding principle of social life. Lauren has suggested that ‘human rights is the common language of humanity’.67 The world has to make human rights living law and to use it to fight poverty. But how should this work? How do human rights become a tool for fighting poverty? And specifically, how do we use the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to overcome poverty?

The case for the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Declaration on the Right to Development68 To begin with, the framers of these conventions were interested in realising the ‘freedom from want’ for the majority of the population especially those in the developing world.

Then, why has this set of rights had its jurisprudence growing slower than that of civil political rights? Some few reasons account for this lagging behind and let us examine them first. In the first instance, the United States, a single power as it is, seems to show little interest in enforcing or supporting implementation of economic, social and cultural rights.69 The approaches of United States-based multi-national companies and some other rich countries can be aptly described in the Banyankore proverb that ‘Shereka amazi twiihe obutuzi’ literally meaning, cover the ugly part and continue to pick, or do what you want, or simply using double standards. The point being made here is that at a global level, the enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights has been half-hearted which, in turn, has negatively impacted on their implementation in Africa and the rest of the developing world. A case in point is that, as various freedoms and rights were being openly violated by leaders in both Ethiopia and Uganda, in the years following the September 11 attack in 2002, the American government consistently engaged Presidents Museveni and Meles Zenawi in an anti-terrorism war. In other words, the African leaders who are either corrupt or violent towards their

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people and thereby leading to poverty through wars in their own countries, often times find support from American and other European governments. The history of DRC offers a good example.

Secondly, but also related to the global actors mentioned above, the set of human rights under this category are often referred to as ‘manifesto rights’ or if you like, ‘idealistic’, which means that they are promises and standards and therefore not necessarily realistic.

This gap of ICESCRs creates problems of implementation.70 For example when one looks at Article 1 of the Declaration of The Right to Development, it includes such claims as that there should be full sovereignty over natural resources, self-determination, popular participation in development, equality of opportunity and creation of favourable conditions for the enjoyment of other civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

But one is tempted to ask when or whether or how such conditions will prevail?

Due to their status of demanding positive responses, there has been reluctance to shoulder such a responsibility. Whereas the global powers may not see themselves as duty bearers in relation to poor countries and therefore take no steps to enforce and support economic social and cultural rights, the leaders of African states refuse to take responsibility because they see these rights as demanding resources which their countries may not afford. This is more of lack of political will rather than lack of resources.

Related to the situation, is the consideration that the culture of poverty in Africa, combined with the culture of neo-liberalism creates even more poverty, to the extent that prospects of demanding and enjoying human rights become a dream that never comes true.71 Of specific importance, is the fact that many Africa leaders view the implementation of human rights as potentially costly to their illegitimate tenures. In the process of human rights implementation, citizens learn about human rights and are able to place their demands including agitating for legitimate institutions, fair laws, respect for the rule of law and other democratic goods. In this regard, therefore, it becomes safer for leaders of these states to resist the implementation of human rights including economic, social and cultural rights, because if they do, they open themselves to challenge by those demanding human rights. Additionally, these ‘big men’ have led their countries to near-collapse (or failed states), and since we understand human rights from a standpoint of the role of the state, then it is not so easy to talk of, later on, implementing human rights – the cases of DRC, Somalia, Zimbabwe and others serve as good references.72 In addition, African leaders have been wary of extensive liberalisation of their economies resulting from pursuing economic, social and cultural rights which may also bear laissez-faire assumptions that propel the market-determined economy and social policy all of which make the African economies exploitable by capitalist forays. As Amartya Sen argued in his rights-goal theory, these policies make the developing states vulnerable to exploitation by Western capitalism.73 Potential for economic, social and cultural rights From a philosophical position, human rights are understood as interdependent, universal and inalienable standards for defining human dignity. This implies that in order for the convention on economic, social, and cultural rights or any other convention to be successfully implemented, other sets of rights ought to be embraced so that a wider human rights bedrock is created. As Mark Thee argues, the civil and political freedoms are left in an existential vacuum when the economic, social and cultural rights are left unattended.74 The advantages accruing from this position are among others, gender equity, good governance, less wastage of resources, stability of investment and many others that would predictably

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reduce poverty. Conventions like CEDAW, CRC, ICEFRD, ILO and other instruments complement each other to offer a synergetic effect against poverty.

It is my view that the rich states together with the multinational companies registered in their countries have a responsibility to contribute to implementation of the ICESCR. This is not just because they have benefitted from other parts of the world (currently in a situation of under- or mal-development) in developing their wealth, but also because many people are suffering the effects of poverty and lack of dignity that respect and fulfillment of economic and social rights would have prevented. If these rich states really believe in human rights ideals, they ought to reject the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and recognise and implement the ECSR through mobilising resources, creating fair trade practices, and recouping part of their profit in the countries from which they accumulate their wealth.75 The implementation of the ICESCR is based on a pragmatic approach to issues of poverty or freedom from want, particularly because the rights therein can be progressively realised based on the available resources. This approach allows processes to be assessed as positive and therefore strengthened, or negative and consequently altered or improved. It is also a cheaper way of addressing the implementation of rights in this category because of the gradualist approach implied in the progressive realisation of rights. This is not to ignore the fact that some states have seized this gap for violating or abusing such rights.76 In addition, this set of rights has an advantage of being conducive and complementary to democratic and development processes as well as other sets of rights. The recent adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has a very close linkage with the ICESCR. In my view, they improve on the enforcement of the ICESCR in the sense that they not only share content but they also provide measurability and targeted goals, namely that by 2015 these goals would have been achieved. They also provide the aspects of accountability, transparency, non-discrimination all of which are included in what has been called a rights-based approach. Human rights based approaches indeed integrate targets, agents, timetables, budgets and organisations.77 But of course, the success of such schemes is dependent on the conditions, political will and capacities of the implementing and monitoring agencies.78 In fact, as Alston has argued, human rights and specifically ICESCR clearly underlines the assumptions of MDGs to the extent that they are ‘passing ships in the night’, meaning that both declarations are pursuing similar objectives.79 This extensive relationship has been illustrated by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN, OHCHR, 1996 – 2002). In fact, if MDGs had been expressed in a human rights language, we would not see any difference between the two. I am convinced that MDGs are a repetition of what already exists in the ICESCR as indicated above. I also agree with Thomas Pogge that the effect of the Right to Development is advantageous because whatever is provided in this right is also covered or implied in the ICECSR.80 In my view, a more focused enforcement of human rights, and specifically ICESCR together with all relevant programs and policies like Poverty Eradication Action Plans (PEAPs) would be even more effective because of the pooling of resources into one basket and focused planning, implementation and evaluation.

In Uganda, though the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) is linked to structural adjustment policies, which are steeped in the neo-liberal framework, it mentions human rights, but the problem has been diminished enforcement. For instance, the poor are not only excluded in policy formulation but they are also excluded when the emphasis is put on the ‘active poor’ as the target for economic support.81 Moreover, the rights-based approach to development adds value to development in realistic terms in view of its

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comprehensiveness, focus on the vulnerable people, accountability and measurability of the achievements and other indicators. After all, the ICESCR is not essentially opposed to other poverty eradication strategies adopted in Uganda in the sense that at face value, they are geared towards freeing people from want.82 Human rights presuppose that duty bearers are known. So who is a duty bearer in the case of freedom from want or poverty? While this paper recognises the state as the primary duty bearer, it is also understood that the rich states and the international community that includes UN agencies, development partners, NGOs and any other international players ought to make the ICESCR and other supportive instruments and agendas their priority.

It may be difficult to enforce these obligations. For instance, to bring to court the international players for their failure to support the realisation of for example the right to education of children in Mozambique or any other developing country may cause significant procedural and substantive legal problems. Nonetheless, it must be driven home that the existing gap between the haves and have-nots is not morally healthy. Consequently, human rights activists, scholars, statesmen and women must make sure that they develop and promote enforcement mechanisms and urge justiciability at both national and international levels of interaction.

Governments ought to forge ahead with widening the jurisprudence of ICESCR as, for instance, Argentina, Brazil, India, Norway, South Africa, Germany, Ireland, and many others are doing. Relevant government legislation, recognising the obligations under these human rights conventions like state-reporting, and adopting a human rights-based approach are quite handy in this regard. In spite of some weaknesses state reporting is very important not only because it is a form of monitoring government standards in terms of transparency and accountability with specific sets of rights but also allows for a more nuanced approach to the issues of economic development that are not normally given prominence through avenues such as the annual budgetary processes.83 In addition, it potentially creates focus on the causes of violations. In other words, the legislative processes and polices must be audited in terms of their effect on the lives of the people, or else the questions of equity, equality, gender, justice, transparency participation and other related issues remain buried under the guise of the nebulous trajectory of development. In short, development does not necessarily involve settling issues of justice, gender and equality; human development does.

It is only when human rights are appreciated and recognised that we see people of the developing world as equal with people in other parts of the world. Only then can we see each other as ‘having inherent dignity, and see each other as having equal and inalienable rights as all members of the human family’ and human rights as ‘the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in world’.84 It is only then, that human rights will have real meaning. Sufficient moral pressure must be placed on rich and powerful Western countries and their multinational companies so that they accept that they have responsibility to make better the lives of the people with less options and endowments.85 They must also accept to recoup the profits in the regions from which they extract huge resources. Above all, the states in which these countries are registered must prevail upon the multi-nationals from producing weapons and other products as well as applying policies that do not only cause conflicts but also poverty and suffering Africa.

This is in agreement with St. Clair’s position that human rights seen as a paradigm for providing justice is not enough to effectively combat poverty; rather, human rights must be complemented by social virtues such as solidarity, as well as instrumental approaches which pressurise or effectively appeal to those in power to offer public goods,86 which, in turn, and in my view, re-emphasises our earlier view of interdependence of human rights. Solidarity

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rights could be subsumed in the rights to association and assembly, which indeed are critical for the realisation of other rights.

Conclusions Although poverty is often conceptually seen as a separate category from human rights, this article has argued that the two terms have a dynamic relationship that reflects a deeper, inherent causality. Human rights violations beget poverty, and poverty is an encapsulation of violations of human rights. Therefore, in order to reduce or eradicate poverty in Africa, it may entail recognition, protection and implementation of human rights of which ICESCR is the most critical set. In other words, the relationship between the two must be exploited for the benefit of Africans and other human beings suffering poverty. In traditional Africa, this dynamic was recognised and responded to through communal social security mechanisms but this has been turn tailing under the forces of globalisation, modernisation and capitalism.

Africa’s poverty and human rights violations are defined by, and partly originated in a global relationship especially of perceiving Africans as having less dignity than others due to their colour, having less power, low level of development, demand for labour in industrial countries, among other factors. This context led to slavery which also opened to colonialism and colonialism opened to neo-colonialism or globalisation, all of which not only destroyed and depleted the African continent of human resources but they also destroyed the personhood of the people who were left behind; these factors still sustain Africa’s poverty and the corollary human rights violations because of their relative power and leverage on the global scene.

The players in all these relationships have intentions and make choices that have moral significance. They therefore have a moral responsibility of eradicating poverty in poor countries especially from where they accumulated and continue to accumulate much of their wealth. They may encourage self-regulation, but international mechanisms should be agreed upon to curtail the negative practices and consequences of our globalised world.

And I contend that the recognition, promotion, mobilisation, and implementation of ICESCR are urgent because of its inherent pragmatic aspects in responding to poverty.

After all, it was first and foremost developed and adopted for purposes of negating want.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Mark 10: 17– 22.

Red Pepper, September 1, 2007.

President Y. Museveni repeatedly made public statements in April 2007 to the effect that Africa has not been able to develop because of its insufficient numbers which would give it a big market. He therefore encouraged the Ugandans to produce adding that educating them would be his duty.

Alex Duval Smith, ‘Kalahari Bushmen win ancestral land case’, The Independent, 14 December 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/kalahari-bushmen-win-ancestral-landcase-428366.html.

In spite of the judgment of this case, however, this matter remains unsettled because, it is arguable that the San had, in the previous 20 years or so, abandoned the traditional life of hunting and wandering. A number of them had settled on water bore holes suggesting that modern technology and education were critical for their life, and therefore there were more implications for human rights understanding and application.

Elisa Reis and Mick More, eds, Elite Perceptions of Poverty and Inequality (Cape Town: CROP, 2005), 144.

Ibid.

The International Journal of Human Rights 8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

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A. Greenspan, ‘The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a new World’, Daily Telegraph, September 17, 2007.

Virtual Truth Commission. http://www.geocities.com/%7Evirtualtruth/mult.htm (accessed September 5, 2007).

It may be argued that Americans are more culpable not only because of their well-considered intentions and awareness of human rights principles but also because their actions have a wide range of consequences such as the numerous lives lost.

Amartya Sen, Reason, ‘Freedom and Well being’, Utilitas, 18, no.1 (2006), 308.

Ibid., 309.

Amartya Sen, ‘Reason Freedom and Well-being’, Utilitas 18, no.1 (2006): 80 –96; Edward Wamala, ‘Poverty Discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa: Human Rights issues at Stake’. Paper presented at the Summer School, Makerere University, Kampala, January 22, 2008.

Ibid.

(Darwin, cited in Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), 67).

For the two presidential elections of 2001 and 2006, the pattern has been that nearly all the urban areas have been won by presidential candidate Kiiza-Besigye while many rural areas were won

by President Museveni. Clearly in the rural areas, there is little debate and understanding of the critical issues related to development and, if it is allowed, it is one-sided in favour of government.

Wamala, ‘Poverty Discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa’.

(Pogge, 2002: 66).

Ibid.

Placide Tempels, Bantu Philosophy (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1938 [1959]).

Julius Nyerere, Freedom and Unity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 54–8; John Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 39–47.

I. Katorokire, ‘A Human Rights Study of Human Ritual Sacrifice and its Underlying Gender Aspects: A Comparison of Katerera Sub-County (Bushenyi District) and Nama Sub-county (Mukono District) From 1990–2003’, MA Dissertation, Makerere University, Kampala, 2005.

State House, Republic of Uganda, Press Release, 3 October 2005, http://www.statehouse.go.ug/ (accessed 23 August, 2008).

Wenche Barth Eide and Uwe Kracht (eds), Food and Human Rights in Development, Volume 1 (Antwerp and Oxford: Intersantia, 2005).

Greenspan, ‘The Age of Turbulence’.

(Eide and Kracht (eds), 2005).

There have been positive developments in the world including South Africa in the case of Grootboom v. Republic of South Africa, in the case of protecting the right to access information and participate in decision-making processes affecting the right to water in the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina and many other cases. See also, E. Riedel and P. Rothen, eds, The Human Right to Water (Berliner: Wissenschafts-verlag, 2006).

Marek Thee, ‘The Philosophical-Existential Issues of the Human Rights Project: Challenges of the 21st Century’, in Human Rights in Developing Countries, YearBook, ed. Baard-Anders Andreassen and Theresa Swineheart (Oslo: 1993), 5.

Lucy Wiliams, Asbjorn Kjornstad and Peter Robson, eds. Law and Poverty, The Legal System and Poverty Reduction (London: CROP, 2003), 16.

(Rukooko, 2005).

Vigdis Broch-Due and A.R. Schroader, Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa (Nordiska Afrikaninstitutet, 2000), 9f.

A. Ruch and K. Anywanu. African Philosophy: An Introduction to the Main Philosophical Trends in Contemporary Africa (Rome: Catholic Book Agency, 1984), 77.

Ibid., 185.

Ibid.

Ibid., 195.

Ibid.

Many times I have travelled to Europe I have been singled out at the airport from among hundreds of Europeans for extra and humiliating checking. Normally, I would keep quiet, but the last time I went to the University of Zurich (13 September 2007) my black colleague complained publicly. If it is because of terrorism, it is not the blacks that are at the centre of

32

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

A. Byaruhanga Rukooko terrorism. If it is political power, blacks have no immediate possibility of getting European power. So what is it if not racism?

P.G. Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 38.

(Rukooko, 2005).

Kenneth Kaunda, Humanist in Africa (London, 1963), 21.

Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights, 160–7.

Ibid., 179.

(Williams et al., 2003: 1) Ibid.

This matter is so urgent that only recently (September 20, 2007), it led to suspension of a state minister, Mr Kasirivu. Recently, the president has encouraged recruiting only members of his party in public service even after Uganda has opened for a multi-party dispensation (BBC News, Wednesday, September, 27, 2007 (see also news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/ newsnight/7015433.stm)).

Edward Mulindwa, ‘Media Facilitates Mass Murder and Looting in Africa’, 2008. groups. yahoo.com/group/zimsite/messages/38939?o¼1&xm¼1&m¼p BBC, September 27, 2007.

Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Lynne Rienner/IDRC, 2000), 48-59.

Ibid., 137 –40; Karen Ballentine and Jacke Sherman, The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance (Lynne Rienner/IDRC, 2003), 19-42.

US Non-Governmental Delegation Trip Report, September 6-20, 1999, www.codesria.org/ Links/Publications/monographs/Cyril_Obi.pdf.

Ibid.

It also allows collective representation for the values and choices of consumer groups, while empowering individual customers vis-a`-vis the marketplace and industry.

Thee, ‘The Philosophical-Existential Issues of the Human Rights Project’; Micheline Ishay, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalisation Era, (University of California Press, 2004), 246. Infopressure and infoactivity refer to bombarding the people with huge amounts of information and infoactivity simply means hyped, over indulgence in information generation, storing and distribution of information respectively.

Ishay, The History of Human Rights, 246.

Greenspan, ‘The Age of Turbulence’.

Francis Appiah, Donald Chimanikire and Thorvald Gran (eds), Professionalism and Good Governance in Africa (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2005), 56– 7.

Francis Appiah, Donald P. Chimanikire, and Thorvald Gran (eds), Professionalism and Good governance in Africa, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School, 2005, 128.

Agnes Asiimwe and Angelo Izama, African Leaders steal $148 billion a year, Daily Monitor, Kampala, September 21, 2007.

The rate at which corruption is being exposed during power struggles as indeed expressed by Gran in ‘Professionalism in African Settings’, in Appiah et al., Professionalism and Good Governance in Africa, 57.

It may be seen as an exaggeration that I am using the term ‘mafia’ to describe the Ugandan political experience. However, this term was first used in President Museveni’s rule by none other than his Vice President, Gibert Bukenya, when he was referring to his colleagues who were fighting him. Besides this claim, I am also convinced that the behaviour of the NRM leadership easily fits that description.

D. Du Bois, ‘Beware the Big Man Syndrome’, in Zvakwana, Mind. http://menewsdaily.com/ 2007/09/03/sadc-africa-bewareofthe-big-man-Syndrome/ (accessed August 18, 2008).

F. Ngige, The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya), October 3, 2007, 8. Nairobi, Kenya.

Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights, 303.

Thee, ‘The Philosophical-Existential Issues of the Human Rights Project’.

(Tomuschat, 2003:211).

Ibid., 73 –5.

Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights, 303.

I treat the right to development as being essentially complementary to the ICESCR. See Art.1 of the Declaration on the Right to Development (GARes.41/128, December 4, 1986). It is

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69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

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80.

81.

82.

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84.

85.

86.

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considered vague because its legal content remains unresolved by the working groups leading to nothing to date as the French would say, ‘qui trop embrasse, mal etreint’, which means that whoever pursues too ambitious goals will eventually end up with empty hands. See Michael Freeman, Key Concepts: Human Rights (Polity Press, 2003).

Many American groups including the followers of McCarthyism, members of the American Bar Association and the Daughters of the American Revolution treated human rights as a ‘UN blue print for tyranny’. See Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights, 237. To date the US has not yet ratified the ICESCR and CEDAW and the famous Tokyo protocols.

Asbjørn Eide, Catarina Klause and Allan Rosas, Economic Social and Cultural Rights. A Textbook (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2001), 553; Fortman in Williams, 2006: 35–6.

Eide et al., Economic Social and Cultural Rights, 557.

Ibid., 561.

Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Random House, 1999).

Thee, ‘The Philosophical-Existential Issues of the Human Rights Project’, 5.

It is reported that in 1820, the European worker was generally getting three times what the African worker was getting. But today, the European worker gets twenty times as much as his/her African counterpart. See Poverty in Africa, Wikipedia, free encyclopedia.

Joe Oloka-Onyango, ‘The Problematic of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Globalised Uganda: A Conceptual Review’. Working paper no. 3, Huripec, Makerere University, March, 2007, 12.

(Resnsburg, in Williams, 2006:126).

Ibid.

Philip Alston, ‘A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals’. Paper Presented as a Contribution to the Work of the Millennium Project Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development, 2006.

Thomas Pogge was making this point in his lectures at the summer school on human rights and development that took place at the University of Bergen, Norway, from 5–8 August 2008.

Under the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), a pillar of the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) as a government strategy for eradicating poverty in Uganda, the definition of the poor was categorised into the ‘destitute’ and the ‘active poor’ whereby the former would not be directly supported. For this categorisation, it is increasingly becoming clear that the destitute have been forgotten several years into the implementation of the NAADS (since 2002). See, Ministry of Agricultural, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MFPED), Kampala, Uganda, 2000.

Ibid.

Oloka-Onyango, ‘The Problematic of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Globalised Uganda’, 60.

Preamble and art. 1, UDHR, 1948.

(Pogge, 2002: 196 –215).

(St.Clair, in Wiliams, 2006: 15).