Reconciling Multi-Level Rights-Based Commitments in Development: Assessing the Legal and Administrative Imperatives of Responding to Education, Health Care, and Environment Protection Challenges
-
Bernice Nuerkey Narh
Abstract
The principles of sovereignty, equality, and self-determination – which have long been the basis for nonintervention in the affairs of sovereign states – have more recently been widened to condemn outside interference by national governments in the affairs of indigenous communities within their territories. These same principles, however, may equally be employed as arguments by sovereign states to justify their engagement in the affairs of indigenous communities residing within their borders, thereby creating the potential for considerable legal, ethical, and political tension. States are urged to respect the autonomy of indigenous people as well as their right to develop, preserve and transmit their history, traditions, and values to future generations; yet states also owe obligations towards indigenous people to facilitate their enjoyment of certain established rights, even as the provision of these obligations may be incompatible with indigenous peoples’ established practices, values, interests, priorities, and beliefs. Multilateral agencies face a similar dilemma in their engagements with national governments: when to respect the sovereignty of national governments and when to champion international law and covenants (e.g., regarding the rights of women and sexual minorities)? Drawing on cases from education, health care, and environment protection, this paper proposes an analytical framework for articulating and reconciling multi-level rights-based development commitments in low-income countries, where the presence of multilateral agencies and intensifying imperatives to attain global development goals generates forces exacerbating (potentially) competing national and sub-national obligations. The paper juxtaposes the relationship between states and multilateral against the relationship between national governments and indigenous groups in exploring the question of whether the principles of international law can be extended to indigenous peoples in the same degree.
Acknowledgment
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone, and should not be attributed to the World Bank, its executive directors, or the countries they represent. The authors seek neither to advance a particular ideological agenda nor resolve a technical conundrum, but rather to provide an overview for development professionals of how international law shapes interactions between nation-states and multilateral organizations, and the extent to which these same principles shape how nation-states engage with sovereign nations within their borders. We are grateful to Vikram Raghavan, Kwabena Oteng Acheampong, and Harum Mukhayer for helpful comments on an earlier draft, to the reviewers and editor of this journal for their helpful suggestions, and to the World Bank’s Research Support Budget for partial funding. All remaining errors of fact and/or interpretation are solely ours. Address for correspondence: bnarh@worldbank.org and mwoolcock@worldbank.org.
References
Media reports
“Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 Between the WHO and Egypt, Advisory Opinion, 1980,” International Court of Justice Report 73 (December 20, 1980).Search in Google Scholar
“Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations, Advisory Opinion, 1949,” International Court of Justice Report 174 (April 11, 1949).Search in Google Scholar
“‘Cut with a blade’: Colombia indigenous groups discuss FGM.” BBC News, October 12, 2016, available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37374006, accessed January 22, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
“American ‘killed in India by endangered Andamans tribe,” BBC News, 21 November 2018, available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46286215, accessed January 28, 2025.Search in Google Scholar
“Ghana’s finance ministry urges president not to sign anti-LGBTQ + bill,” BBC News, March 4. 2024, available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68469613, accessed November 10, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
“Indigenous Group and Locals Sign Agreement to Protect Sustainable Livelihoods and Culture,” Mongabay Environmental News, May 18, 2022, available at: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/indigenous-group-and-locals-sign-agreement-to-protect-sustainable-livelihoods-and-culture/, accessed December 12, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
“Indigenous Peoples Defend Earth’s Biodiversity – But They’re in Danger.” National Geographic, November 16, 2018, available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/can-indigenous-land-stewardship-protect-biodiversity-, accessed January 19, 2024Search in Google Scholar
“Latam Eco Review: Colombia’s Last Nomadic Tribe Faces Extinction,” Mongabay Environmental News, May 11, 2018, available at: https://news.mongabay.com/2018/05/latam-eco-review-colombias-last-nomadic-tribe-faces-extinction/, accessed December 12, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
“Nukak Dispossession Highlights Amazonian Tribes’ Plight.” BBC News, September 18, 2010, available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11331508, accessed January 19, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
“Uganda [Karamoja Region]: IPC Food Security and Nutrition Snapshot |March – July 2022.” Relief Web, May 21, 2022, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/uganda/uganda-karamoja-region-ipc-food-security-nutrition-snapshot-march-july-2022-published-may-31-2022, accessed January 22, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
“Uncontacted and Unconquered: The Most Isolated Tribe in the World,” Greek Reporter, July 19, 2024 available at: https://greekreporter.com/2024/07/19/last-most-isolated-stone-age-tribe-world/, accessed January 28, 2025.Search in Google Scholar
“Why Protecting Indigenous Communities Can Also Help Save The Earth.” The Guardian, October. 12, 2020, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/climate-academy/2020/oct/12/indigenous-communities-protect-biodiversity-curb-climate-crisis, accessed January 19, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
“Why Uncontacted Tribes Want to Stay Uncontacted,” The Atlantic, October 13, 2023, available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/north-sentinel-island-tribes-maurice-vidal-portman/675563/BBC, accessed January 28, 2025.Search in Google Scholar
Published Journal Articles, Books, and Agency Reports
Amnesty International, Indigenous Peoples Rights are Human Rights, available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/indigenous-peoples/, accessed April 18, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Amnesty International, Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/indigenous-peoples/, accessed August 27, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Avery, S., “Intersections in Human Rights and Public Policy for Indigenous People with Disability,” in Franziska Felder, Laura Davy, and Rosemary Kayess (eds.), Disability Law and Human Rights: Theory and Policy, Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86545-0, accessed October 15, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Barker, J., “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” in J. Barker (ed.), Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005).Search in Google Scholar
Brown, S., Visibility or impact? International efforts to defend LGBTQI + rights in Africa, 15 Journal of Human Rights Practice, no.2 (2023).Search in Google Scholar
Chian, M., “Monism and Dualism in International Law,” in Anthony Carty (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2018), available at: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199796953/obo-9780199796953-0168.xml#:∼:text=A%20dualist%20system%20treats%20the,application%20of%20that%20international%20norm, accessed October 15, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Crocker, D., International Development Ethics, available at: https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/OApp/OAppCroc.htm, accessed May 3, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
Cultural Survival, Maasai Autonomy and Sovereignty in Kenya and Tanzania available at: https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/maasai-autonomy-and-sovereignty-kenya-and-tanzaniaaccessed February 14, 2025.Search in Google Scholar
Dahir, A. L., “Ugandan Court Upholds Draconian Anti-Gay Law,” New York Times April 10, 2024, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/world/africa/uganda-anti-gay-law.html, accessed November 10, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Daugirdas, K., How and Why International Law Binds International Organizations, 57 Harvard International Law Journal, no. 2 (2016).Search in Google Scholar
Davis, W., The Wayfinders (House of Anansi Press, 2009).Search in Google Scholar
De Schutter, O., “Human Rights and the Rise of International Organisations: The Logic of Sliding Scales in the Law of International Responsibility,” in Jan Wouters et al. (eds.), Accountability for Human Rights Violations by International Organisations (Intersentia, 2010).Search in Google Scholar
Gilbert, J., Land Grabbing, Investments and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Land and Natural Resources: Case Studies and Legal Analysis, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs Report No. 26 (2017), available at: https://www.iwgia.org/images/publications/new-publications/land-grabbing-indigenous-peoples-rights.compressed.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Government of the Netherlands, Appendix: International Law in Cyberspace (July 2019), available at: https://www.government.nl/documents/parliamentary-documents/2019/09/26/letter-to-the-parliament-on-the-international-legal-order-in-cyberspace.Search in Google Scholar
Graham, Lorie M. and Siegfried Wiessner, Indigenous Sovereignty, Culture, and International Human Rights Law, 110 South Atlantic Quarterly (2011).Search in Google Scholar
Hammer, J., “The Lost Tribes of the Amazon.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2013, available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/the-lost-tribes-of-the-amazon-22871033/, accessed December 18, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
Hazama, I., Citizenship, Resistance and Animals: Karamoja Region Pastoralists’ Resilience against State Violence in Uganda, 25 Nomadic Peoples, no. 2 (2021).Search in Google Scholar
Henry G. Schermers and Niels M. Blokker, International Institutional Law (4th rev. ed., 2003), p. 995, § 1574.Search in Google Scholar
Hibbard, M., Indigenous Planning: From Forced Assimilation to Self-determination, 37 Journal of Planning Literature, no. 1 (2022), 17–27, available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/08854122211026641.Search in Google Scholar
International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, The Indigenous World 2019: Uganda, available at: https://iwgia.org/en/uganda/5361-iw-2024-uganda.html, accessed February 13, 2025.Search in Google Scholar
Koch, A., Chris Brierley, Mark M. Maslin, and Simon L. Lewis, Earth System Impacts of the European Arrival and Great Dying in the Americas After 1492, 207 Quaternary Science Reviews (2019).Search in Google Scholar
Krasner, S., Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton University Press, 1999).Search in Google Scholar
Louis M., and Lucile Maertens, Why International Organizations Hate Politics: Depoliticizing the World (Taylor and Francis, 2021).Search in Google Scholar
Mayall, J., Non-Intervention, Self-Determination and the New World Order, 67 International Affairs, no. 3 (1991).Search in Google Scholar
McInerney-Lankford, S. and Robert McCorquodale (eds.), The Roles of International Law in Development (Oxford University Press, 2023).Search in Google Scholar
Megret, F. and Florian Hoffmann, The UN as Human Rights Violator? Some Reflections on the United Nations Changing Human Rights Responsibilities, 25 Human Rights Quarterly, no. 2 (2003).Search in Google Scholar
Milanovic, M., Revisiting Coercion as an Element of Prohibited Intervention in International Law, 117 American Journal of International Law, no. 4 (2023).Search in Google Scholar
Nardin, T., Law, Morality, and the Relations of States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).Search in Google Scholar
NASA Earth Observatory, Karamoja Beset with Drought, available at: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151969/karamoja-beset-with-drought, accessed January 19, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
OHCHR Fact Sheet No. 9/Rev.2, Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Human Rights System (New York, 2013), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/fs9Rev.2.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
OHCHR, About Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/indigenous-peoples/about-indigenous-peoples-and-human-rights, accessed April 18, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Oxford Reference, Westphalian State System, available at: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803121924198accessed May 1, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Plant, Raymond, “Justifications for Intervention: Needs Before Context,” in Ian Forbes and Mark Hoffman (eds.) Political Theory, International Relations and the Ethics of Intervention (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).Search in Google Scholar
Safi, M., “Sentinel Island’s ‘Peace-Loving’ Tribe Had Centuries of Reasons to Fear Missionary.” The Guardian, November 30, 2018 available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/30/sentinelese-tribe-who-killed-american-are-peace-loving-say-anthropologists, accessed May 4, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
Samuel Muhula et al., The Impact of Community Led Alternative Rite of Passage on Eradication of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Kajiado County, Kenya: A Quasi-Experimental Study, 16 PLOS One, no. 4 (2021).Search in Google Scholar
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 55–56 (1978).Search in Google Scholar
Shaw, M. N., International Law (8th ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Shrinkhal, R., “Indigenous Sovereignty” and Right to Self-Determination in International Law: A Critical Appraisal, 17 AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, no. 1 (2001).Search in Google Scholar
Simon Peter Longoli, Tell the Karamoja Story Right, Karamoja Development Forum, June 24, 2014, available at: https://karamojadf.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/tell-the-karamoja-story-right/, accessed October 15, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, K. N., “Everything We Know About the Isolated Sentinelese People of North Sentinel Island.” Forbes, November 30, 2018, available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2018/11/30/everything-we-know-about-the-isolated-sentinelese-people-of-north-sentinel-island/?sh=2cbb590c35a0, accessed May 5, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
Stefano Varese, Witness to Sovereignty: Essays on the Indian Movement in Latin America (IWGIA, 2006), available at: https://iwgia.org/en/resources/publications/305-books/2645-witness-to-sovereignty-essays-on-the-indian-movement-in-latin-america.htmlaccessed January 15, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Survival International, Maasai, available at: https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/maasai, accessed August 27, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Survival International, Nukak, available at https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/nukak, accessed December 12, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
Survival International, Sentinelese, available at: https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/sentineleseaccessed May 3, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Tamanaha, B. Z., The Rule of Law and Legal Pluralism in Development, 3 Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, no. 1 (2011).Search in Google Scholar
The European Space Agency, Tsunami Leaves Tribal Island High in the Water, available at: https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Proba-1/Tsunami_leaves_tribal_island_high_in_the_water, accessed May 5, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
The Royal Scottish Geographical Society, The Nukak: the Last Contacted Tribe in Colombia Fighting to Return Home for More Than 30 Years, available at: https://www.rsgs.org/blog/the-nukak-the-last-contacted-tribe-in-colombia-fighting-to-return-home-for-more-than-30-years, accessed December 12, 2023).Search in Google Scholar
The Sustainable Development Goals Report (United Nations. New York. 2024) available at https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2024/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2024.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Thomas, Caroline, “The Pragmatic Case Against Intervention,” in Ian Forbes and Mark Hoffman (eds.) Political Theory, International Relations and the Ethics of Intervention (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1993).Search in Google Scholar
UNICEF, Harmful Practices, available at: https://www.unicef.org/protection/harmful-practices, accessed January 22, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations Changing Human Rights Responsibilities, 25 Human Rights Quarterly (2003).Search in Google Scholar
United Nations Environment Programme (2023), As Climate Crisis Alters Their Lands, Indigenous Peoples Turn to the Courts, available at: http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/climate-crisis-alters-their-lands-indigenous-peoples-turn-courts, accessed January 19, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations, Deliver Humanitarian Aid, available at: https://www.un.org/en/our-work/deliver-humanitarian-aid, accessed May 5, 2023.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations, ECLAC, About the 2023 Agenda for Sustainable Development, available at: https://www.cepal.org/en/topics/2030-agenda-sustainable-development/about-2030-agenda-sustainable-development, accessed March 27, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals, available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals, accessed March 25, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples Indigenous Voices: Fact Sheet available at https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations, UNPFII Mandated Areas – Economic and Social Development, available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/mandated-areas1/economic-and-social-development.html, accessed April 18, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
United States Department of State, Uganda, available at: https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/uganda, accessed January 22, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Waiting for Karamoja to Develop: of Uganda’s Uneven Development.” Monitor, September, 14, 2020, available at: https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/special-reports/uganda-50/waiting-for-karamoja-to-develop-of-uganda-s-uneven-development-1518964accessed January 22, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Wiessner, S., Indigenous Sovereignty: A Reassessment in Light of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 41 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, no. 4 (2008).Search in Google Scholar
Woods, N., The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers (Cornell University Press, 2006).Search in Google Scholar
World Bank Group, World Bank Group Statement on Uganda, available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2023/08/08/world-bank-group-statement-on-uganda, accessed November 10, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
World Bank, Indigenous Peoples, available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/indigenouspeoples, accessed April 18, 2024.Search in Google Scholar
Legal Agreements
Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956.Search in Google Scholar
Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund.Search in Google Scholar
Charter of the United Nations.Search in Google Scholar
Columbian Constitution of 1991.Search in Google Scholar
Convention Establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee AgencyILO Indigenous Peoples and Tribes Convention, 1989 (No. 169).Search in Google Scholar
International Labour Organization, Indigenous Peoples and Tribes Convention, 1989 (No. 169).Search in Google Scholar
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Articles of Agreement.Search in Google Scholar
International Covenant on Civil and Political rights.Search in Google Scholar
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.Search in Google Scholar
International Financial Corporation, Articles of Agreement.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.Search in Google Scholar
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.Search in Google Scholar
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Search in Google Scholar
Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.Search in Google Scholar
World Bank Indigenous Peoples Policy Framework (OP 4.10).Search in Google Scholar
World Bank, World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (Washington, DC.: World Bank, 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Supplementary Material
This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/ldr-2024-0131).
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
