Law
Human Rights and Poverty
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Human rights as a concept
Poverty as a concept
Relationship between human rights and poverty
Normative framework
Other related notions
Human rights principles underlying poverty reduction
strategies
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Human rights as a concept
Values and norms about the protection of human dignity, laid
down in legal texts, that entail rights for individuals and
obligations for states.
Requirements for a right to be recognized as a human right:
• Object: substance or content of a right
• Subject: right holder
• Duty bearer: duty holder
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Categories of human rights:
• Civil and political rights
• Economic, social and cultural rights
• Collective or group rights
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Economic, social and cultural rights
Different definitions:
Rights relating to an adequate standard of living;
Conditions under which people live and work;
Claims to the fulfilment of basic needs;
Claims relating to the quality of life from a material and
immaterial perspective;
Claims relating to opportunities to make a living and
the protection of working conditions.
Law
Poverty as a concept
Amartya Sen’s capability approach:
A person’s freedom or opportunities to achieve well-being.
Poverty: low levels of capability.
Sen: “the failure of basic capabilities to reach certain
minimally acceptable levels”.
Basic capabilities: being adequately nourished, clothed and
sheltered, avoiding preventable morbidity, taking part in
the life of a community and being able to appear in public
with dignity.
Law
Poverty as a broad concept:
• Inadequate command over economic resources (work
generated income)
• Insufficient command over publicly provided goods and
services (housing, health, education)
• Inadequate command over or access to resources that are
made available through formal and informal networks of
support (social security and social assistance)
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Voices of the Poor (World Bank, 2000)
• “Poverty is lack of freedom, enslaved by crushing daily
burden, by depression and fear of what the future will
bring.” (Georgia)
• “For a poor person everything is terrible – illness,
humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of
everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us. We
are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of.” –
(A blind woman from Tiraspol, Moldova.)
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• “Poverty is like living in jail, living under bondage,
waiting to be free.” (Jamaica)
• “If you want to do something and have no power to do it, it
is talauchi (poverty).” (Nigeria)
Law
Extreme poverty
The combination of:
• Income poverty: lack of income or purchasing power to
secure basic needs.
• Human development poverty: extreme or severe
deprivation of elements of well-being, such as health,
education, food, housing.
• Social exclusion: When as a consequence of
marginalization, discrimination and exclusion in social
relations, people lack basic security and the capability to
lead a life of value.
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Impoverishment:
A worsening of the poverty situation of people as a result
of a deliberate policy of the state or a failure or
indifference by the state to embark on an active and
effective policy of poverty eradication.
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Relationship between poverty and human rights
The capability approach defines poverty as the absence or
inadequate realization of certain basic freedoms.
These freedoms should be understood as negative and
positive freedoms:
• Negative: non-interference with the pursuit of freedoms;
• Positive: creation of an enabling environment.
Law
Basic freedoms, both negative and positive ones, are
considered as fundamental for minimal human dignity.
Consequently, poverty can be defined as:
• Either the failure of basic freedoms (from the perspective
of capabilities)
• Or the non-fulfilment of rights to those freedoms (from the
perspective of human rights)
Law
Non-fulfilment of human rights would count as poverty
when it meets the following two conditions:
• The human rights involved must be those that correspond
to the capabilities that are considered basic by a given
society.
• Inadequate command over economic resources must play a
role in the causal chain leading to the non-fulfilment of
human rights.
Law
Poverty seen through a human rights lens:
A human condition characterized by sustained or chronic
deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security
and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate
standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic,
political and social rights.
Poverty constitutes a denial of human rights.
(UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
Statement on Poverty, 2001)
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Disputed definition of poverty from a human rights
perspective:
Poverty as a massive and ongoing violation of human rights.
Poverty is seen as a mass, structural and enduring
phenomenon, in which individuals and families are
subjected to poverty by external forces and decisions
which have nothing to do with them and over which most
of the time they have no control.
Poverty appears as an arbitrary imposition on certain
individuals and groups, and constitutes a flagrant type of
discrimination.
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Poverty as a violation of human rights?
• What is a violation? A violation is an act or omission
(failure to act) which destroys or harms the enjoyment of a
right which a state is under an obligation to respect or to
fulfil.
• Of which legal norm? There is no human right not to be
poor.
• By whom? → Who is the duty bearer?
→ Who is the perpetrator?
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The United Nations position:
The United Nations presently sees poverty as a cause
and a product of human rights violations.
Poverty is characterized by discrimination, unequal
access to resources and social and cultural
stigmatization. It amounts to a denial of human
rights and human dignity.
Fighting poverty is a matter of obligation, not of
aspiration or charity.
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General Assembly of the United Nations:
• “The existence of widespread extreme poverty inhibits the
full and effective enjoyment of human rights and might, in
some situations, constitute a threat to the right to life.”
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Normative Legal Framework
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (1966); Article 2(1) + 6-15
• Declaration on the Right to Development (1986)
• Vienna Declaration – World Conference (1993):
“All human rights are universal, indivisible and
interdependent and interrelated.”
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International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (1966)
• Article 2(1):
Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to
take steps, individually and through international
assistance and cooperation, especially economic and
technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a
view to achieving progressively the full realization of the
rights recognized in the present Covenant by all
appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of
legislative measures.
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Declaration on the Right to Development (1986)
‘Development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural
and political process, which aims at the constant
improvement of the well-being of the entire population and
of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and
meaningful participation in development and in the fair
distribution of benefits resulting therefrom.’
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Core human rights obligations
“(...) the Committee is of the view that a minimum core
obligation to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least,
minimum essential levels of each of the rights is
incumbent upon every State party.
Thus, for example, a State party in which any
significant number of individuals is deprived of
essential foodstuffs, of essential primary health care, of
basic shelter and housing, or of the most basic forms of
education is, prima facie, failing to discharge its
obligations under the Covenant.”
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
General Comment no. 3, § 10.
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UN-Millennium Declaration (2000)
“We will spare no efforts to free our fellow men,
women and children from the abject and
dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to
which more than a billion of them are currently
subjected. We are committed to making the right
to development a reality for everyone and to
freeing the entire human race from want.”
Law
Human Rights Principles Underlying Poverty Reduction
Strategies
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Universality and Indivisibility
Equality and Non-Discrimination
Participation and Inclusion
Empowerment of Poor People
Accountability and the Rule of Law
State obligations: progressive realization of esc-rights
Obligation of International Cooperation
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• Poverty reduction is clearly a human rights obligation. →
Failure to overcome poverty implies a failure to implement
human rights.
• Lack of anti-poverty policies and programs may give rise
to a breach of human rights obligations.
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• Poverty reduction strategies should depart from a human
rights based approach:
→ national level: pro-poor programs aimed at vulnerable
and marginalized groups require priorities in the budget;
→ IMF and World Bank programs;
→ Bilateral development cooperation.
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Added Value of a human rights based approach to
poverty reduction:
• International legal human rights obligations accepted
voluntarily add legitimacy to poverty reduction.
• Recognition of complementarities between economic,
social and cultural rights and civil and political rights.
• Focus on both processes and goals of development.
• Emphasis on legal obligations to realize essential services.
• Accountability of policy-makers.