Human Rights and Development Conference, Oslo

October 11-12, 2004
Oslo, Norway

The workshop was set up in response to a request from J.D. Wolfensohn to the Nordics to help the Bank better deal with the human rights approach.  Within this broader context, a half day was devoted to discussing the WDR 2006 outline and how the report can better incorporate a HR perspective.  Participants included academics from Norway and the US and staff from the Norwegian Center for Human Rights and the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (about 30 people).  The Bank was represented by David Freestone, Deputy General Counsel, and other staff from the Legal Department; Reidar Kvam (SDV); Ruth Also (PRMPR); Giovanna Prennushi and Caroline Sage from the WDR team.  Several important comments were made.

Overview.  On "What is Equity:  Equity is a normative concept, related to fairness in distribution. It involves: A preference of equality of opportunities; A regard to the just reward of merit; A concern with the avoidance of very low outcomes. It is almost never the same as equality.", two major reactions:

• "Preference" for equality is far less than a "commitment" to equality of opportunities.  Why just "preference"?  (Seems to me it should be "commitment")
• That "equity is almost never the same as equality" will raise a red flag by those who see equity used to justify discrimination against women; in particular, nine Islamic states have raised an "equity objection" to the convention on the elimination of discrimination of women, by saying that in Islamic societies it is equitable, because of social context, to have unequal outcomes for women under Sharia, for example four women counting as one men as witnesses.  So we need to complement that sentence with something that indicates that we care deeply about ending discrimination, for example saying that in some cases we care about equality of outcomes.
• The climate in the Bank with respect to the HR approach has changed; the current General Counsel thinks HR should be part of the Bank's discourse.  This is a major change with respect to the past.

Chapter 3

Intrinsic argument

• We really ought to refer to the human rights approach when talking about why equity matters intrinsically.  More than a hundred countries have ratified the various Human Rights covenants that sanctions economic, social, and political rights.
• Economic efficiency is not a value in itself, while equality (at least in some dimensions) is.  So it is wrong to put economic efficiency and equity on the same ground; wrong to say that the trade-off between equity and efficiency depends on social preferences or the state.

Inequality matters instrumentally. 

• We need to clarify instrumentally to what.  Arguably the goal is poverty reduction (not growth per se), with poverty intended broadly.  This links to question of addressing WHY reducing inequalities, before addressing the WHAT to do and HOW TO DO IT questions.