It takes a courageous writer to take on the compassionate hearts and high hopes of those who argue there is a "human right to development," now enshrined in many United Nations agreements. Chaffour is such a writer. He points out that this idea of human rights is an intellectual dead end and has had no practical benefit for the world's poor. Worse, he argues, the "right to development" violates individual human rights in a way that makes development less likely rather than more. Nobody who has ever paid attention to the many concepts of human rights can afford to NOT read this book, which itself displays both a compassionate heart and a tough and incisive mind. Chaffour is admirably determined to be brutally honest about which ideas really do further the cause of poverty reduction and which do not.

William Easterly

Professor of Economics, New York University