The Right to Development as established in the 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development has now been recognized, through an international consensus arrived at in Vienna in 1993, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights. That has not, of course, settled all the controversy regarding the nature and the content of the Right to Development, but the inter-governmental debate has shifted more to the methods of implementation of that Right. This article reviews the nature and contents of the Right to Development by virtue of which every individual is entitled to a process of economic, social, cultural and political development in which all human and fundamental freedoms can be realized. It spells out a program for implementation of the Right, step by step, through national efforts supported by international cooperation. While the states are primarily responsible for realizing this Right for their citizens, the international community has the obligation of enabling the states to do so. A mechanism is proposed through international compacts to design, promote and monitor the process of implementation.
