Entwicklung als Selbstbestimmung

How did the developing states try to harness the UN-platform for human rights to bring about change in the international economic order during the cold war? This study delivers answers to that question. It examines the bitter quarrel about the formulation of and the connection between the two most relevant human rights in that perspective: the right of all peoples to self-determination and the right to development. Drawing from the methodology of conceptual history, this international history interfaces with international law, practical philosophy and international political economy. It questions the setting of international human rights about the relationship between might, right and morale. It argues that the formulation of the right to self-determination presented a genuine political success of the developing states. The right to development, however, documents the failure of those states to formulate their concepts of a just international economic order in terms of human rights. The formulation of this right can be regarded as a partial success of those states at the most, in that it affirms once again the economic side of the right to self-determination.