An Intellectual Fashion: Human Rights Standards as a Barrier to Development?

Abstract

Although the ILO’s role as a technical assistance agency helped to make the Organization more popular among the developing countries during the 1960s, the obstacles facing the integrated approach to development during this period were greater than ever. The new nations’ initial enthusiasm with regard to the ILO’s human rights norms soon waned dramatically. In the words of George Weaver, a human rights expert and American Government representative on the Governing Body, the Organization became witness to a “growing conflict between economic development and the…guarantee of human rights”.¹ On central issues such as forced labour or freedom of association, many developing countries began to question, in an increasingly fundamental way, the value of ILO human rights norms. A new discourse emerged in which the governments of the newly independent States defined the underdevelopment of their countries as a state of emergency that called for the subordination of individual interests to those of the State. The ILO’s endeavours to uphold its principles were increasingly interpreted as an attempt to torpedo the economic efforts of the developing countries. These accusations brought to light conflicting views on the relationship between development and certain human rights norms even within the Office itself. Thus, with decolonization complete, the ILO again found itself having to satisfy itself of the universality of its own concepts.