Question 4: Discuss the claim that development in industrializing countries often violates universal rights to a clean environment and to the humanitarian treatment of labour.
[Unit of study: Human rights]

This response suffers a little initially from a somewhat unclear conceptualization of the key concept “development”, although the candidate soon resolves this with a clearer exposition of the concept in the context of some contemporary real-world examples. In particular there was sophistication in the recognition that the industrialized “West” followed a similar pattern of environmental and labour “violations”, as well as in the excellent treatment of not only how certain industrializing states violate universal rights to a clean environment and humanitarian labour standards but, importantly, what reasons such states might offer in their defence for doing so. The counterclaim was strong (especially as this is a challenging question) and, furthermore, it is evaluated. This is what propels an otherwise very solid paper into the top markband as it displays clear evidence of higher order thinking, although the inconsistencies and somewhat forced theoretical references restrict this to the lower end of the 21–25 markband.