The Right To Development

The Right to Development remains a contested right due to the lack of consensus on its precise meaning. Its main value lies in the insistence in the Declaration that "the subject of development is the human person" and that development can only be achieved through the realization of human rights.

"By placing the individual at the centre of development activities and proclaiming an integrated vision of all human rights, the Declaration is a vehicle for the indivisibility and complementarity of different categories of human rights and for recognizing the promotion and protection of all human rights as the basis and measure of sustainable development".

Mary Robinson
High Commissioner for Human Rights in her 1999 Report to ECOSOC