Rethinking the Right to Development: After The Critique of Development, After the Critique of Rights*

Abstract

This article discusses the United Nations' Declaration of the Right to Development in the context of contemporary scholarly critiques both of development discourse and of rights discourse. Highlighting the geo‐spatial dimension of post‐World War II development theory, this article considers whether the recent assertion of an international right to development by leading human rights scholars from Africa and elsewhere may mark the beginning of a local, grassroots hijacking of managerial development discourse.