Debating human rights

By Alex Singleton | 20 October 2005

Last week I took part in an debate organized by the Economist and the LSE discussing whether human rights are essential to economic development. I was given the side arguing that human rights aren't essential to development, but I could have easily argued the other side as well. After all, I'm a strong supporter of human rights. The line I took was to argue that there were clearly some things necessary for development. Adam Smith described them as peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice. He also said there is a lot of ruin in a nation - governments can follow a lot of really bad policies and the economy still stays intact. But that it is clear also that countries like China are lifting millions of people out of poverty despite human rights issues.

I argued that economic development, and its creation of a middle class, causes human rights recognition to be improved. So it is a mistake to impose sanctions or boycotts on countries with poor human rights records. Such action will slow down the development that improves the rights.

I discussed some of the history of sanctions. In 1962 the United States imposed sanctions against Cuba. Forty-three years later, Fidel Castro is still in power, freedom of expression and association is still restricted, and Castro gets to blame his country's poverty on the Americans. American sanctions have reduced investment into Cuba, hindering living standards there, but of course Cuba has trading relationships with the rest of the world, so they are a rather weak form of sanction.

Yet multilateral UN sanctions seem to fare little better. Sanctions against Iraq are widely said to have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths of children. Were they worth it? They did not bring forth democracy, they did not get Saddam Hussein's co-operation with weapons inspectors, they did not cause Saddam any suffering whatsoever. They solely hurt the ordinary people. "Economic embargoes," said the late Pope John Paul II, "are always deplorable because they hurt the most needy."