Global Development and Human Rights

“This book provides a lucid, accessible, and trenchant analysis of the potential and limits of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Paul Nelson moves deliberately and seamlessly between high-level theoretical frameworks and the grassroots reality of people and organizations at the heart of the struggle to implement economic rights. This deeply nuanced explanation of what has (and has not) worked in relation to the SDGs succeeds in making us care about development: the dilemmas of distribution, inequality, participation, and accountability central to this assessment are central to our shared futures. This book is vital to understanding how development paradigms have changed over time and to making our way forward collectively amidst the uncertainty facing us all.”–Shareen Hertel, Professor of Political Science and Human Rights, University of Connecticut, and Editor, The Journal of Human Rights“Global Development and Human Rights is by far the best and most comprehensive work so far on the vital question of how the Sustainable Development Goals connect to human rights standards. It provides both an explanation of the theoretical issues involved and many practical examples of development agencies building on this connection. It also considers the impact of COVID-19 on progress toward the SDGs. It moves forward understanding of the rights-based approach to development, and will be equally interesting to academics and to practitioners in the development sphere.”–Joel E. Oestreich, Professor of Politics, Drexel University, and author of Development and Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality in India

Paul Nelson is an associate professor of International Development at the University of Pittsburgh.