Page 229 - El État de los derechos humanos en el desarrollo sostenible

EL ETAT DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN EL DESARROLLO SOSTENIBLE

“In the name of the people that we serve, we have adopted a historic
agreement which contains a complete series of objectives which are

278
universal, ambitious, human-centered and change oriented targets. ”

This universal characteristic as well as the focus on the human being is equally the object of
criticism. In fact, sustainable development would be an imposed life ideal that would not

sufficiently consider the differences between cultures and people who may have their own

values and objectives. The anthropocentric and Universalist visions of sustainable
development remain essential elements of this approach and, by the same token, its main

limitations. Faced with the need to find solutions to the major environmental and social

challenges caused by a disproportionate race for growth, the approach to living-well opens the

door to a new paradigm. It proposes a model closer to the reality of people, while calling into
question the concept of ‘development’, considered as the ‘ideal’ of life for all peoples.

2. THE WELL-LIVING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES:
CONTRADICTORY OR COMPLEMENTARY?

When we compare the well-living approach with the approach of sustainable development, a

contradiction between them appears at once: the very concept of “development”. The
concept of development is foreign to the vision of many indigenous peoples. Indeed, for

279
these populations, there is no process of underdevelopment, and even less of development .
Their aspiration as a society or community is not the accumulation of goods, nor wealth, nor

278 Id., p. 3 (2).
279 Fernando HUANACUNI MAMANI, Vivir Bien / Buen Vivir, La Paz, Convenio A. Bello, Instituto Internacional
de Investigación y CAOI, 2010.

231