Globalization, human rights and sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis attempts to address the originating question: Is globalization the cause of Africa's state of underdevelopment? Although framed in the language of economics, the question also has legal implications. Specifically, it seeks to establish why the region has been unable to realize any of the core elements of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, such as the rights to health, food, housing and education.

It examines the policies espoused particularly by the Bretton Woods institutions (namely, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization), and acknowledges their detrimental impact on the economies of developing countries generally. The role played by transnational corporations in shaping this neo-liberal economic order is also examined, as are the human rights ramifications.

It concludes, however, that although the impediments posed by the dynamics of globalization to human rights have been almost universally acknowledged, these, without more, are not sufficient to explain why the situation within the region is more depressing than elsewhere in the world. It follows, it is argued, that the supposition that Africa is a casualty of globalization amounts to a dangerous extrapolation, not least because it creates unrealistic expectations on the part of an already indigent and helpless people by diverting their attention to exogenous factors.

The research acknowledges the inherent diversity of the political economy of the region, but identifies leadership as the obstacle to its development and argues that unless radical steps are taken at the international level, all efforts aimed at ameliorating the suffering of its people will continue to prove futile. Such steps, it is suggested, must necessarily include the indictment of rulers who continue to expose their citizens to unnecessary suffering through corruption, endless wars or sheer supercilious misrule. This, it is acknowledged, would not be unproblematic, given the traditional maintenance, within the human rights community, of a wholly artificial distinction between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. Nevertheless, the contention is that if the various UN Declarations proclaiming the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights mean anything other than empty rhetoric, these principles must be affirmed at the level of enforcement.