Workshop on International Law, Natural Resources and Sustainable
Development
A Right to Development Approach to the Exploitation of Natural Resources
Koen De Feyter
Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp
In Africa, the right to development is a human right on par with other rights, due to its
inclusion in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. In other regions of the
world, the right to development either has a soft law status or is contested.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights insists on the domestic justiciability
of the right to development, and in its Endorois decision has applied the right to
development to land and resource exploitation issues. The contribution will assess the
decision, and discuss its usefulness as a precedent in Africa and elsewhere.
In the African Charter, the right to development is geared towards establishing domestic
State responsibility. In the global debate, however, developing countries have insisted on
duties of international solidarity, or on a global enabling environment for the realization of
the right to development. The contribution will thus also analyse the potential
consequences of a right to development approach for the international normative
framework relating to exploitation of natural resources.