DRIVE OF HUMAN RIGHTS ADVANCEMENT: DEVELOPMENT

Zhuo Zeyuan

China

Human rights have both obligatory and actual attributes, and also include contents in two aspects – obligatory human rights ideal and actual human rights situation. However, both obligatory human rights ideal and actual human rights situation have intrinsic relationships with development; development is the drive of human rights advancement. Such relations are mainly reflected by economic development, cognitive development, legal development and human development in respect of promoting human rights advancement.

1. Economic development and human rights advancement

The term “economy” has multiple meanings; different scholars or works may have different definitions of it. No matter how to understand economy, however, we can consider economic development as the drive of human rights advancement.

Perhaps “economy” refers, first of all, to the development status of social productivity. Social productivity is always the most vigorous and the most active factor in social development, and is also the ultimate determinant in social development. The development of productivity provides a material possibility for the development of human rights. The right to life, the right to survival, the right of freedom, the right of equality and the right to development, among others, are all closely linked to economic development. The realization of the right to life must take the maintaining of human life as the most fundamental requirement. Human life is always assured with certain subsistence materials; without material conditions that can meet the human needs for the basic necessities of life, it will be difficult to maintain human life. Neither security nor improvement of the basic necessities of life can be divorced from the development of social productivity. Human subsistence, quality (good or bad) and condition of life are all closely related to the productivity conditions of a specific society. Freedoms of individuals or the humankind are not an illusion. Certain productivity development is the most substantial and indispensable foundation of the building of human freedoms. Human equality requires likewise necessary material assurance. Particularly, for physical assistance and relief provided to disadvantaged groups and individuals in modern societies, if there were no certain productivity and economical development as support, it would be difficult and even impossible for a country, a society or an individual to protect relevant human rights. The human right to development certainly includes the right to development, economically and in terms of productivity.

“Economy” is also frequently used to refer to the social economic base, i.e., total social relations of production. The condition of the social economic base (certain social relations of production) determines the condition of human rights too. In economic conditions, interpersonal relationships, as well as different legal regulations of these economic relations, also influence the basic condition of human rights directly. Under natural economy and market economy people have different economic relations, and in agricultural and industrial societies people have different economic relations. These form the economic base of a particular society. Overall, we can say affirmatively that human rights in the industrial society with market economy evolved from those in the agricultural society with natural economy and rose to a new level. And the requirements and conditions of human rights protection in the market economic and industrial society changed substantially, different form those in the history. Thus how to improve the level of human rights protection is just a topic of modern society.

The advancement of human society is always associated with the development of human cognition, and it is even justifiable to say that any advancement made by human beings originates from the development of human cognition. Hence human rights advancement is no exception. Without cognitive development, it is impossible for the humankind to push human rights ahead. Human cognitive development therefore is the forerunner of human rights advancement.