Economics and human rights: Narrowing the gap

Trade, like income, has little intrinsic value to human well-being. But it is instrumental in achieving human rights, as it creates the means for providing additional resources; both at the individual level (through employment and expanded markets) and at the country level (through national expenditure and growth), which can then be harnessed to deliver rights. It is also worth noting that the relationship between trade and human rights is two-way; the realisation of rights can lead to increases in trade, and other aspects of development, as people’s human capital accumulates.

But human rights covenants focus on the assurance of people’s actual standard of living rather than defining the process that achieves it. Specifying each element of the economic and social processes that might deliver an adequate standard of living for all would be impractical and is impossible given substantially varying country circumstances.

But this often leads to a tension in policy debates; between those that advocate for the realisation of universal human rights and those that focus on the, often economic, policy practicalities of development. In the rights arena, often too little consideration is given to the practicalities of their realisation. And in economics, generally too little attention is given to thinking policies through from a human rights perspective.

Perhaps the practicalities of policy analysis and design cloud the purity of the human rights debate. Or perhaps the end-game focus of the rights advocate oversimplifies economic reality.

But to bridge the gap between the two it is necessary to understand how rights might be achieved in practice. This is particularly important when considering trade because its impact on human rights will depend substantially on the nature of the resources it creates and their distribution. Trade that does not benefit excluded or poorest groups will do little to improve their rights and may even isolate them further. Ideally, trade should create sustainable benefits that expand, either directly or indirectly, the opportunities that these groups face.

While international and domestic trade may in general create overall benefits by expanding markets and creating growth, reforms to trade policy will often create trade-offs. For example, the reduction of tariffs, while broadening trade opportunities and growth, may hurt some domestic producers in the short-term who were previously protected. The benefits of facilitating or liberalising trade are also more likely to accrue to those who are not the poorest or most excluded. Women are usually more likely to be poor than men; but men generally have better access to resources (such as land and credit) that can enable them to take greater advantage of trade opportunities. As a result, increases in trade may cause inequality to rise as poorer groups are left behind, which must be a concern to policy-makers particularly as inequality can act as a brake on future economic development.

Therefore we cannot assume that trade promotion, or indeed any strategy to increase economic growth, will deliver commensurate reductions in poverty and realise human rights. And nor can we define a precise blueprint for how trade will always lead to the achievement of human rights, given variations in country circumstances and characteristics. To consider trade a human right therefore seems to miss these complexities.

However, this debate should not end there. Because trade is instrumental to the progressive realisation of human rights, and because of the reverse causality between the two, the rights and the economic agendas must be dramatically integrated. The distributional impact of trade policies and trends must be analysed using a human rights approach. This should be done through detailed, country-specific impact analysis that assesses the capacity of poor people to engage with and benefit from trade opportunities.

Complementary policies that enhance positive impacts or mitigate negative ones, such as improvements to public financial management or childcare programmes to support women in the workforce, should also be considered.

The human rights debate must recognise the need to consider policy choices and their varied trade-offs; and the economic policy debate must recognise the need to consider fully the human rights impact of such choices.

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