Law School Human Rights versus Human Needs: Debating the Language for Universal Access to Modern Energy Services Manuel Peter S. Solis 3 July 2014 12 th.

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?