A/HRC/56/61 I. Introduction 1. Defined as the increase in gross domestic product (GDP), economic growth has long been seen as desirable for its own sake. Economists have debated how it can be achieved and politicians how its benefits could be shared. Human rights bodies have seen growth as an indispensable condition for the realization of economic and social rights, based on the assumption that without growth, there would be no resources to mobilize for the progressive realization of such rights – for investments to be made in the provision of health care, social housing or education, or for the creation of jobs. 1 Governments still act as if infinite growth were possible. Ignoring the warnings of scientists, 2 they seem to believe that economic activity can expand endlessly, as if the Earth will forever provide limitless resources and absorb the waste resulting from our apparently endless quest for more. 2. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur questions these assumptions. First, he argues that growth is a distraction from what truly matters, namely: poverty eradication and well-being for all.3 Second, the economies of rich countries have grown far beyond what is necessary to allow people to flourish; they have become obese. In those countries, growth is failing to reduce poverty and inequalities and to create jobs. It is leading to the transgression of a number of planetary boundaries. 4 Third, it has been fuelled by a plundering of the resources of the global South, in a post-colonial pattern of domination maintained by the stranglehold of foreign debt. 5 In poor countries, where significant investments are still required – for the building of schools and hospitals, or for transport or electricity infrastructure – growth can still serve a useful role. In practice however, it has often been extractive, relying on the exploitation of a cheap workforce and the unsustainable mining of natural resources. If it is to contribute to the realization of human rights therefore, its direction must change. It should be reoriented towards satisfying needs and shared more widely, rather than simply making the rich richer and furthering the dominance of major economic actors. 6 3. Despite its limitations, growth has become hegemonic. 7 GDP remains the main indicator by which the performance of Governments is measured. Its increase is seen both as a substitute for large-scale redistribution and as a precondition for meeting certain challenges societies face. Unsurprisingly, it is in the name of growth that trade liberalization has been pursued: the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization refers to the need to ensure “a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand, and [to expand] the production of and trade in goods and services” (first preambular paragraph). Perhaps more troubling, economic growth is also referred to in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which includes a pledge to support an “open international economic system that would lead to economic growth and sustainable development in all 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 Matthias Petel and Norman Vander Putten, “Economic, social and cultural rights and their dependence on the economic growth paradigm: evidence from the ICESCR system”, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 39, No. 1 (2021), pp. 53–72. William J. Ripple and others, “World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency”, BioScience, vol. 70, No. 1 (2020), pp. 8–12. Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (London, Random House Business, 2017); and Jason Hickel, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (London, Penguin Random House, 2020). Johan Rockström and others, “Safe and just Earth system boundaries”, Nature, vol. 619, No. 7968 (2023), pp. 102–111. Jason Hickel, “Is it possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries?”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 40, No. 1 (2019), pp. 18–35; and Jason Hickel, “What does degrowth mean? A few points of clarification”, Globalizations, vol. 18, No. 7 (2021), pp. 1105–1111. Frances Stewart, “Macroeconomic policies for a sustainable world”, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, vol. 24, No. 4 (2023), and Caroline Dommen, “Human rights economics: an inquiry” (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, July 2022). Matthias Schmelzer, The Hegemony of Growth: The OECD and the Making of the Economic Growth Paradigm (Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2016). GE.24-07068