August 2011

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 19481. Then in 1986, The UN Declaration of the Right to Development added that development is a human right:

“Everyone is entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized1.”

In the 1990’s the human rights community began promoting a rights-based approach to development of impoverished nations2.  Then in 2000, when the world’s leaders met and set the goal, to halve extreme poverty by 2015, they include human rights (or equality) as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MGD’s) outlined to achieve their mission3.

“The pursuit of human rights promotes the freedom, dignity and worth of every person — so too does the pursuit of human development. When rights are made real, the poor can participate in decisions affecting their lives.4”

The oxford press published a paper, entitled “Human Rights and Development” that separates human rights into six specific issues:

  1. The economics of social rights 4.     Reform of legal and judicial systems
  2. Land rights and women’s empowerment 5.     The role of the private sector in promoting human rights
  3. Child labor and access to education 6.     Building human rights into the development process

In 2006 development practitioners met to discuss the links between human rights and the MGDs. After a six week discussion that, “linking human rights to the MGDs does matter5.” They then went on to agree that “the human rights framework is an important tool for achieving the MGDs (and eliminating extreme poverty in the world) by helping to ensure the Goals are pursued in an equitable, just and sustainable manner5.”

Melissa Leonard

1 www.ohchr.org P. Alston, 2 The Rights Framework and Development Assistance , 3 www.un.org/milleniumgoals.com, 4 www.undp.org, 5 Human Rights and The Millennium Development Goal – Managing the Link

Investologist Prognostication

Jeremy Leonard
Dear Reader:

I have read a lot about the historical rise and fall of stock markets and governments.  Governments get larger and more complex until they fail.  This has happened over and over.  Stock markets go up and down but more up than down.  Once the market has finished going down, it will go back up again.  Simple.  Eventually it will be higher in the future than it has been in the past.
“‘Perhaps more than anything else, failure to recognize the precariousness and fickleness of confidence, especially in cases in which large short-term debts need to be rolled over continuously, is the key factor that gives rise to the this-time-is-different syndrome. Highly indebted governments, banks, or corporations can seem to be merrily rolling along for an extended period, when bang! confidence collapses, lenders disappear, and a crisis hits.” This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart

So how does it end?  The excesses are flushed from the system and the markets go back to normal, rewarding companies that make profits.

I will sit on the cash that I have accumulated and wait for some normalcy (predictability?) to return to the stock markets.