2.5 Right to Development

The 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development: development as an inalienable human right — every person and all peoples entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development. The controversies: the right-holder and duty-bearer puzzles (peoples vs states; national vs international duties); the duty to cooperate; the NIEO's 1970s lineage and the South's claims against the North. The practical faces: the SDGs as the operationalisation debate; the LDC graduation's human-rights dimension (Nepal's 2026 milestone — the transition's rights-audit); the "development first" argument against the "rights-based approach to development" (the RBA — rights as the ends and means of development).