The Politics of Human Rights: A Global Perspective (Human Security in the Global Economy) by Evans Tony

Author:Evans, Tony [Evans, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2005-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

Thus, if TNCs use the free market to invest in ways that deprive people of the means of subsistence, or if the WTO, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the EU implement free trade rules, practices and procedures that deprive people of the means to achieve subsistence for themselves, this is also a denial of human rights. Consequently, ‘those who deny rights can have no complaint when the denial … is resisted’ (Shue 1980: 14). In this view of negative and positive rights, international institutions, the state and its agents and TNCs have a duty not to engage in practices, including trade practices, that indirectly lead to human rights violations, not merely those actions for which they have direct responsibility (Addo 1987).

Shue does not deny that on occasion circumstances may demand a redistribution of resources from the wealthy to those unable to provide the basic needs of life for themselves. However, he concludes that if rights are never wholly negative or positive then correlative duties cannot be wholly negative or positive. For example, the correlative duties associated with the right to life must include a duty to avoid harm (negative), a duty to protect from harm (negative/positive) and a duty to aid those threatened (positive). Similarly, the right to subsistence includes a duty to avoid taking action that deprives others of the means of subsistence, a duty to protect others, whose only means of subsistence is threatened, and a duty to aid those unable to provide for their own subsistence. For Shue, the means to achieving basic subsistence security

… could be controlled by some combination of the mere restraint of second parties and the maintenance of protective institutions by first and third parties, just as the standard threats that deprive people of their physical security could be controlled by restraint and protection from non-restraint. (Shue 1980: 41)

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