Fairer Trade & The Human Right to Development -- A Perfect Match or Misconceived Twins

Abstract

This paper examines a critical issue in the relationship between trade liberalisation and human rights -- the relationship between fair trade and the human right to development. Specifically, this paper analyses the failure of the identical twins -- the well intended “Special and Differential” (“S&D”) treatment in the global trading system and the right to development -- both born out of the same struggle for an NIEO. It is argued that neither has worked for countries that are desperate for an economic take-off and a meaningful realisation of the right to development and, hence, some fundamental but not necessarily radical re-thinking is required for the identical twins to work in practice.

Keywords: trade, human rights, right to development