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lives and potential of poor women, men, and children, stating that it is “vital that all our policies address these issues in a more systematic and coherent way.”63 In paragraph 13(c), the AAA goes further: “Developing countries and donors will ensure that their respective development policies and programmes are designed and implemented in ways consistent with their agreed international commitments on gender equality, human rights, disability and environmental sustainability.” The 2011 outcome document from the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan explicitly preserves the commitments of the AAA and, like the AAA, contains provisions on human rights. In addition, it provides for the right to development and confirms that the “common principles which—consistent with our agreed international commitments on human rights, decent work, gender equality, environmental sustainability and disability—form the foundation of our cooperation for effective development.”64 The trend among such high-level statements and declarations is clearly in favor of recognizing human rights more explicitly and in terms of obligations and international commitments. This movement promotes a vision of development and human rights that supports international policy coherence and that recognizes the potential impacts of actions in one policy realm on other areas. At the level of general political statements, therefore, the trend increasingly recognizes the relevance of human rights law obligations to development cooperation, including aid effectiveness.
Development Policies At an institutional level, the policies of many development agencies and banks reflect the points of convergence, albeit in different ways. This section traces the links between human rights and development in these policies, noting the ways in which they approach the question of human rights as the subject of binding international law obligations. References to Human Rights Some policies contain general or preambular references to human rights, but the operational implications of these references remain unclear. Such references might cite the importance of human rights in the development process or include provisions regarding the respect of human rights of particular groups; some even go so far as to define human rights by reference to the relevant international legal instruments. Examples are found in the indigenous peoples 63 Accra Agenda for Action, paragraph 3.
64 Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, Outcome Document (Dec. 1, 2011), paragraph 11, available at http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/images/stories /hlf4/OUTCOME_DOCUMENT_-_FINAL_EN.pdf. See also references to human rights and rights-based approaches in relation to the Millennium Declaration (paragraph 3) and the role of CSOs (paragraph 22).