This book addresses the pressing issue of severe poverty and inequality, and questions why violations of socio-economic rights are treated with less urgency than violations of civil and political rights, such as the right to freedom of speech or to vote? Socio-economic rights have been widely regarded as aspirational goals, rhetorically useful, but having few practical implications for government policy and the distribution of resources within a polity. It is not therefore surprising that socio-economic rights have been systematically neglected in the world today, with millions still lacking access to even basic shelter, food or health care. This book seeks to provide a sustained argument for placing renewed emphasis upon socio-economic rights in the fight against desperate poverty. It utilizes a combination of political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy in its focus on the right to food, to housing, and to health care. Part I involves the development of a philosophical theory of rights that provides a common normative foundation for both civil and political rights and socio-economic rights. This theory involves developing an understanding of value that recognizes individuals have fundamental interests of differing levels of urgency. It also involves drawing an important distinction between conditional rights that flow purely from a normative focus on the equal importance of individuals and unconditional rights that involve competing normative and pragmatic considerations. A general theory of judicial review is also put forward that provides a justification for judicial involvement in the enforcement of socio-economic rights. Part II then considers the implications of this general philosophical theory for the interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights in law. The focus of this more applied discussion is upon South Africa, where entrenched, directly justiciable socio-economic rights are expressly protected in the constitution. The current approach of the South African Constitutional Court to their interpretation and enforcement is considered and criticized primarily for failing to provide sufficient content to such rights. A modified version of the minimum core approach to socio-economic rights is proposed as an alternative way which is supported by the philosophical theory developed in the first part of the book. This approach requires priority to be given to the worst off in society through placing a heavy burden of justification on any society that fails to meet the minimal interests of individuals. It also requires concrete steps to be taken towards realising a higher level of provision that guarantees individuals the necessary conditions for realising a wide range of purposes. This is also shown to have important policy implications both for developing and developed countries that can, it is hoped, assist in creating an urgency and commitment towards eradicating extreme poverty.

Some 2.5 billion human beings live in severe poverty, deprived of such essentials as adequate nutrition, safe drinking water, basic sanitation, adequate shelter, literacy, and basic health care. One third of all human deaths are from poverty-related causes: 18 million annually, including over 10 million children under five. However huge in human terms, the world poverty problem is tiny economically. Just 1 percent of the national incomes of the high-income countries would suffice to end severe poverty worldwide. Yet, these countries, unwilling to bear an opportunity cost of this magnitude, continue to impose a grievously unjust global institutional order that foreseeably and avoidably perpetuates the catastrophe. Most citizens of affluent countries believe that we are doing nothing wrong. Thomas Pogge seeks to explain how this belief is sustained. He analyses how our moral and economic theorizing and our global economic order have adapted to make us appear disconnected from massive poverty abroad. Dispelling the illusion, he also offers a modest, widely sharable standard of global economic justice and makes detailed, realistic proposals toward fulfilling it. Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this classic book incorporates responses to critics and a new chapter introducing Pogge's current work on pharmaceutical patent reform.

This book conducts a comparative legal study from two analytical points of view. First, it accounts for the legal dimensions of the fight against poverty and the right to development as seen from the perspective of domestic legal law. It examines the domestic legal tools, such as constitutional law, that aim to contribute to the fight against poverty and the right to development. Second, the book accounts for the domestic contributions to the international legal framework and examines cross-cutting themes of the contemporary state-of-play on the fight against poverty more broadly and of the right to development. The book consists of several national and thematic reports, which look at these issues from either a national or a thematic perspective. Its first chapter is a general report, which draws on the national and thematic reports to compare, systematize and question the contemporary features at play within the field of the fight against poverty and the right to development.

This book seeks to advance the emerging field of international poverty law. While law and development discourse has dealt with international poverty, advocates of poverty reduction customarily operate within a nation-state context. The contributors to this volume, while largely, although not exclusively, relying on human rights discourse and United Nations, International Labour Organization and World Trade Organization initiatives as their primary legal sources, begin to position international poverty law as a legitimate field for transnational, multidisciplinary legal research and dialogue. While critiquing both legal theory and current policy, they nevertheless open up a constructive prospect of specific arenas in which the development of international poverty law can contribute to addressing poverty reduction. The opening chapters of this volume provide a framework within which to position the future theoretical development of international poverty law. The rest of the book explores specific human rights initiatives that address particular aspects of poverty. These include an overview of human rights conventions and how they can be connected to international poverty law; measures required to counter the tendency of intellectual property law as applied to biological products and processes to undermine food security; the right to food as framed in United Nations development documents; the potential role that voluntary codes of conduct currently being adopted by some transnational corporations might play in poverty reduction; and the startlingly important development in the new South Africa of an alternative vision of constitutional law that takes account of international human rights instruments in moving towards rendering social and economic rights justifiable.

Poverty Law, Policy, and Practice is organized around an overview and history of federal policies, significant poverty law cases, and major government antipoverty programs—welfare, housing, health, legal aid, etc.--which map onto important theoretical, doctrinal, policy, and practice questions. The book includes academic debates about the nature and causes of poverty as well as various texts that help illuminate the struggles faced by poor people. Throughout, it contains reading selections highlighting different perspectives on whether poverty is primarily caused by individual actions, structural constraints, or a mix of both. Readers will come away from the book with both a sense of the legal and policy challenges that confront antipoverty efforts, and with an understanding of the trade-offs inherent in different government approaches to dealing with poverty. New to the Second Edition: Updated coverage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Updated coverage of criminalization of poverty and efforts to decriminalize poverty Additional content for every chapter, with an emphasis on new cases, data, and sources Professors and students will benefit from: Three beginning chapters of general background on poverty numbers (data), social welfare (policy) and constitutional law (doctrine), followed by substantive chapters that can be selected based on professor interest, which makes the book easy to use even for 2-credit classes Emerging topics at the intersection of criminal law and poverty, markets and poverty, and human rights and poverty, in addition to traditional poverty law topics An author team with a combined experience of more than 100 years of teaching and practicing poverty law Highlights throughout the text to the racial and gendered history and nature of poverty in America An emphasis on presenting the most important topics accessibly, with careful editing and selection of excerpts to make the most of student and professor time A mix in every chapter of theory, program details, advocacy strategies, and the experiences of poor people

Presents fifteen essays by academics about the severe poverty that afflicts billions of human lives. These essays seek to explain why freedom from poverty is a human right and what duties this right creates for the affluent.

The 94 Papers In This Set Of Five Volumes, Presented At An International Conference, Organised By Barkatullah University, Bhopal, Analyse The Interface Between Human Rights And Poverty, With Particular Reference To India. Dealing With Conceptual Theoretical And Philosophical Dimensions Of Poverty And Human Rights, They Address A Wide Range Of Issues Pertaining To The Situation Of Human Rights And Poverty Among Different Social Groups In Different States Of The Country. The Role Of National Human Rights Commission And Ngos In The Protection Of Human Rights And In Eradication Of Poverty Has Also Been Analysed.