The Fund for Global Human Rights, in collaboration with Article 3, is pleased to share “Missing Links: Human Rights and the Global Economy,” a new essay by Vice President for Development and Communications Rona Peligal and Vice President for Programs David Mattingly, two members of the Fund’s leadership team.
The essay is part of The Next 25: A Collection of Essays on the Future of Human Rights, edited and published this week by Article 3 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Regan Ralph, founding president and CEO of the Fund, also contributed to the volume.
Earlier this week, Fund President and CEO Gabriela Bucher joined Article 3 in San Francisco for their event “Still We Rise: Our Voice, Our Rights, Our Future,” to commemorate Human Rights Day and discuss this milestone moment for the human rights movement.
In “Missing Links,” Rona and David draw on two decades of experience in the human rights space to challenge conventional wisdom about human rights and our global economic system. International human rights organizations have historically shied away from criticizing key aspects of the market economy, including resource extraction, profit motive, and the denial of public goods. But to realize the founding vision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we must center economic justice as well as political and civil rights. They write:
By and large, mainstream organizations and donors have failed to grapple with the root causes of the human rights abuses that we seek to end, including how the global economy underpins, and even incentivizes, violations.
…International organizations and donors – particularly those based in the Global North – must interrogate the ways in which we continue to benefit from a system that is designed to impoverish and disempower those we are ostensibly trying to help.
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