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Law School
Human Rights versus Human Needs: Debating the Language for Universal Access to Modern Energy Services
Manuel Peter S. Solis 3 July 2014 12th IUCNAEL Colloquium
Outline of presentation
Human Rights versus Human
Needs
I. Background
II. International perspective
III. Implications of lack of access to modern energy services
IV. Importance of language
V. The Debate: Rights versus Needs
VI. Conclusion
Human Rights versus Human Needs
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/world-electricity-mix/
Human Rights versus Human Needs
Issue = 1.3 billion today; 1.2 billion in 2030 85% in rural areas
Human Rights versus Human Needs
In Top 20 High Impact Countries16 million unelectrified people (SEFA, 2013 Global Tracking Framework Report)
Human Rights versus Human Needs
1986
1992
2000
2001 2005
2010 2012
From Brundtland to Now
BrundtlandReport
UNCED
MDG
CSD-9 UN Millennium
Project
AGECC
Rio + 20&
Int’l Year for SEFA
2004
WEA
2011
UNSG Vision
StatementSEFA
2013
UN Decade for SEFA
(2014-2024
Lack of access to modern energy services
Human Rights versus Human Needs
•Deprivation of basic needs
•Impedes poverty eradication/development
•Widens gap between “haves” and “have-nots”
•Results to marginalisation
•Involves disempowerment and equity considerations
•Inhibits full and effective enjoyment of human rights
• The importance of language
Words can clarify or obscure Framing of issues Setting priorities Operationalising concepts Reaching a common understanding
• Legal response is vital to advancing international and national development agenda and goals. (Adrian Bradbrook, et. al, 2008)
• What is the legal response to the challenge?
Human Rights versus Human Needs
Bone of contention
“The modern expansion of government has led to proposals for reinterpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the provision of basic services such as education, poor relief, and, presumably, police protection, even if they are not being withheld discriminatorily .... It is enough to note that, as currently understood, the concept of liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment does not include a right to basic services, whether competently provided or otherwise.” (Jackson v City of Joliet, 715 F.2d 1200 (1983), 1203-1204; Emphasis supplied)
Human Rights versus Human Needs
The Language of NeedsMark Tushnet, 1984
Critique of rights Why “needs”
• Unstable More pragmatic and better path to follow:
• Indeterminate “People need food and shelter now, and demanding those needs to be satisfied … as enforcing a right – strikes me as more likely to succeed than claiming that existing rights to food and shelter must be enforced”.
• Reifies
• Pragmatic disutility
Human Rights versus Human Needs
The Language of RightsJeremy Waldron, 2000
Critique of needs Why “rights”
• More indeterminate and contestable
• Active not passive
• Passive • Moral framework
• Presumed inequality • From charity to claim
• Suppliant pleas • Empowering
Human Rights versus Human Needs
Proposition
Couch universal access to modern energy services in the language of rights, because:
• Consistent with the concept of dignity, subsistence
and equality• Claim not charity• Accountability and empowerment• Catalyse change
Human Rights versus Human Needs
Human Rights versus Human Needs
QUESTIONS?