12. Globalization and human rights
Advanced industrialized economies like the United States and the European Union have been inserting human rights clauses into their trade and cooperation agreements with partner countries in recent years. Trade concessions are suspended for countries breaching these clauses. Democracy and respect for human rights are part of the political stability and confidence-building that form a necessary precondition for local entrepreneurship and for attracting foreign direct investment. The communications revolution that is going hand in hand with globalization is also facilitating efforts to better protect human rights.

As they expanded their networks of trade and cooperation agreements around the world in recent years, commercial powers like the European Union and the United States have insisted more and more on the inclusion of human rights clauses in such deals. This means that the advantages offered to their partners in terms of trade preferences or financial and technical assistance can be suspended in the case of non-respect of human rights. This has already happened in a number of cases. In this way, globalization actually helps to underpin human rights.

Moreover, there is a clear positive link between the globalization of the economy and the communications revolution, on the one hand, and democratic rights and freedoms, on the other. According to a recent study from a private sector think tank (Economic freedom of the world: 2000 annual report, Economic Freedom Network at http://www.freetheworld.com), the following countries have the least free economies of the world: Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau, Algeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi and Albania. Few of these countries, rent as they are by internal dissent or repression, would come very high on any ranking of countries respectful of human rights either.

Democracy and respect for human rights make up part of the environment of political stability and confidence-building that form a necessary precondition for local entrepreneurship and attracting foreign direct investment and its benefits in terms of contribution to growth and prosperity. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF "identified political instability, war, and the absence of the rule of law as critical impediments to providing such a setting, and to development more generally".

Finally, the internet and the information revolution which reach right down to the individual level also make it more difficult for governments to repress free access to information, freedom of expression and other basic human rights. Open frontiers for human rights and democracy are part of the same process as open frontiers for goods, services and capital (op. cit. IMF, p 185).

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