Freedom from Poverty As a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor?

210 Pages·2007·9 MB·English

by  Thomas Pogge

Freedom from Poverty as
a Human Right
Who Owes What to the Very Poor?
l
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1
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Edited by
THOMAS POGGE
Ox.FO"RD
United Nations
Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization : UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Foreword
This publication is a result of the first cycle of workshops for a UNESCO project on
poverty launched in 2002. The project, originally proposed as Ethical and Human
Rights Dimensions ofP overty: Towards a New Paradigm in the Figh t Against Poverty,
focuses on the conceptual analysis of understanding poverty within the framework
of human rights. Since 2002, eleven seminars have been held, bringing together
scholars from the fields of Philosophy,. Economics, Political Science, and Law. The
present volume gathers selected papers from a series of philosophy seminars held
in six countries.
The first phase of the project aimed to foster a philosophical analysis and eluci
dation of understanding poverty and how it relates to human rights, basic needs,
and corresponding duties. Scholars within and beyond the philosophical commu
nity were invited to produce papers which analyze the key concepts relevant to
poverty and human rights, such as responsibility, violation, obligation, duty and
the question of duty-bearers, accountability, indirect or direct causality, as well
as the significance of solidarity, social global justice, and the minimal conditions
for maintaining and preserving human dignity. This conceptual analysis has given
rise to reflections on the notions of individual and collective action and identity
(personal, social, and institutional). The challenge is to see how an organization
such as UNESCO might galvanize the commitment of the world community
by addressing the moral obligation to take action to eradicate poverty and to
contribute to the full realization of the fundamental basic rights of all peoples.
Poverty is not simply a matter of material deprivation. It is a matter of human
dignity, justice, fundamental freedoms, and basic human rights. But the existing
paradigm apparent in various approaches to poverty reduction remains deeply
questionable and largely ineffective, lacking the genuine inclusion of the above
mentioned aspects as the mobilizing force of poverty eradication. UNESCO is
endowed with an ethical mandate unique to the Organization, and can address
the problem of poverty in terms of moral responsibility and ethical necessity to
mobilize actors in the international arena. UNESCO is also the intellectual arm of
the United Nations (UN) and can take the lead in fostering the understanding of
poverty in relation to legal and causal responsibilities of the world community.
The first phase of the project has thus been the conceptual development of
poverty as it relates to human rights. The second phase will be to reach out to the
community of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), decision-makers and
the general public to nourish action with the conceptual analysis produced by
the scholars and to foster strategies on combating poverty through the framework
of human rights.
Pierre Sane, former Secretary-General of Amnesty International and currently
the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO, has
Vlll Foreword
given tremendous support to the project through his vision and direction. This
project would not have continued in its current form without his guidance. On
Contents
behalf of the UNESCO Poverty and Human Rights Team, I would like to thank
Thomas Pogge for his relentless efforts in giving his energy, wisdom and commit
ment to the realization of the present publication and to the project. He supported
the project from the very beginning and has given precious advice and support to List of Contributors xi
the team despite difficulties and obstacles. I would like to express my deep grati
tude to the central figures of the project who gave their support and collaborated Introduction
with the team: Stephen Marks, Arjun Sengupta, Paul Hunt, Christine Chinkin, Thomas Pogge
Chaloka Beyani, Lucie Lamarche, Paolo Pinheiro, Miloon Kothari and Rio Hada.
1. Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation 11
I would like to thank the UNESCO Team on Poverty and Human Rights, begin
Thomas Pogge
ning with Mrs. Feriel Ait-Ouyahia, the coordinator, who worked hard to realize
the project with me: Annali Kristiansen, Kristina Balalovska, Marlova Jovche 2. Poverty as a Violation of Human Rights: Inhumanity
lovitch Noleto, Beatrice Maria Godinho Barros Coelho, Paolo Fontani, and Firmin or Injustice? 55
Eduardo Matoko. I w~uld also like to thank Rekha Nath and David Mollica for Tom Campbell
organizing and carefully editing the final manuscript. Finally, I would like to say
how grateful I am to the solid support given to me for my work by the Chief of 3. The Moral Reality of Human Rights 75
John Tasioulas
Section, Moufida Goucha, as well as by my colleagues at UNESCO for the project:
Victor Billeh, Rene Zapata, and Hans D'Orville. 4. Inequality and Poverty in Global Perspective 103
While putting the finishing touches on his contribution to the present volume, Alvaro de Vita
our colleague Alan Gewirth passed away. We are grateful to his wife, Jean Laves,
for her help in finalizing his essay according to his wishes. 5. Poverty as a Form of Oppression 133
Alan Gewirth was a great pioneer in teaching and writing about human rights Marc Fleurbaey
who made important contributions also in medieval political philosophy, early
6. Neglected Injustice: Poverty as a Violation of Social
modern philosophy, and ethics. He was born in Manhattan in 1912 and received
Autonomy 155
his AB from Columbia University in 1934. After two years of graduate study
Regina Kreide
there, he spent 1936-7 at Cornell and then moved to the University of Chicago
as assistant to Richard McKeon. Having served four years in the army, he spent 7. The Duties Imposed by the Human Right to Basic
1946-7 at Columbia on the GI Bill, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1948. He Necessities 183
taught at the University of Chicago until he retired in 1982 as the Edward Carson Elizabeth Ashford
Waller Distinguished Service Professor. Gewirth served as president of the Amer
8. Duties to Fulfill the Human Rights of the Poor 219
ican Philosophical Association and the American Society for Legal and Political
Alan Gewirth
Philosophy and was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His
main books are Reason and Morality (1978), Human Rights: Essays on Justification 9. Extreme Poverty in a Wealthy World: What Justice
and Applications (1982), The Community of Rights (1996), and Self-Fulfillment Demands Today 237
(1998). At the time of his death, he was working on a new book, Human Rights Marcelo Alegre
and Global Justice. He died on May 9, 2004, at the age of 91. We, all who have
worked together on this volume, are dedicating it to his memory. 10. Responsibility and Severe Poverty 255
LeifWenar
Mika Shino
11. Global Poverty and Human Rights: The Case for
Teamleader of the Poverty and Human Rights Project
Section of Philosophy and Human Sciences Positive Duties 275
Simon Caney
UNESCO, Paris Headquarters
12. The Right to Basic Resources 303
Stephane Chauvier
x Contents
13. Poverty Eradication and Human Rights 323
Arjun Sengupta
List of Contributors
14. Enforcing Economic and Social Human Rights 345
Osvaldo Guariglia
15. The Right of Resistance in Situations of Severe Deprivation 359 Marcelo Alegre is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Buenos
Roberto Gargarella Aires and Director of the University of Palermo Law School. He received a Doctor
ate of Juridical Science at New York University under the supervision of Thomas
Bibliography 375 Nagel with a dissertation on egalitarian rights and constitutional democracy. He
Index 391 works in the fields of constitutional law and moral, legal and political philosophy.
Elizabeth Ashford is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. She
has been a Visiting Faculty Fellow in Ethics at the Harvard University Edmond
J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and an H. 1. A. Hart Visiting Fellow at the
,.,
Oxford University Centre for Ethics and the Philosophy of Law. Her main research
interests are in ethics and contemporary political philosophy, and her publications
include 'Utilitarianism, Integrity and Partiality' (Journal of Philosophy 97,2000),
and 'The Demandingness of Scanlon's Contractualism' (Ethics 113, 2003).
Tom Campbell is Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and
Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, Canberra, as well as Distinguished
Associate at the Centre for Commercial Law, Australian National University, and
Visiting Professor at King's College Law School, London. He was formerly Profes
sor of Law at the Australian National University and Professor of Jurisprudence
in the University of Glasgow. His interests are in legal and political philosophy
and business and professional ethics. His most recent book is Rights: A Critical
Introduction (Routledge 2006).
Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory at Oxford University and Fellow
and Tutor in politics at Magdalen College. He is the author of Justice Beyond
Borders (Oxford University Press 2005). He has published articles on liberalism,
perfectionism, global distributive justice, human rights, humanitarian interven
tion, sovereignty, and national self-determination. He is currently working on
global environmental justice and cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice
and is writing a book provisionally entitled On Cosmopolitanism (under contract
to Oxford University Press).
Stephane Chauvier is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Caen, France.
His main research interests are in contemporary political philosophy and theories
of social justice. He has published two books and various articles on international
justice and transnational migration and is currently working on the question of
natural resources ownership.
Alvaro de Vita is Professor Associado of Political Science at the University of Sao
Paulo, Brazil. His main research interests are modern theories of justice, questions
of inequality and poverty, and the relation between democracy and justice. He has
published A justis;a igualitaria e seus criticos [Egalitarian Justice and Its Critics]
xii List of Contributors List of Contributors
Xlll
(Sao Paulo: Martins Fontes 2007). Representative of his work are 'Individual Human Rights (Polity 2002) and John Rawls: His Life and Theory ofJ ustice (Oxford
Preferences and Social Justice' (Brazilian Review of Social Sciences, special issue, University Press 2007).
1,2000) and 'Moral Reasoning and Political Deliberation' (RIFD. Quaderni Della
Arjun Sengupta is one of India's leading economists who moved between eco
Rivista Internazionale Di Filosofia Del Diritto, special issue, 4, 2004).
nomic research and teaching and policymaking at the highest levels. He currently
Marc Fleurbaey is research director at CNRS-CERSES (Paris), a member of the serves as a Member of Parliament, as Chair of the National Commission on
Institut d'!!.conomie Publique (Marseilles), and a Lachmann Fellow at the London Enterprises in the Unorganized/Informal Sector (with cabinet rank), as the UN's
School of Economics. He works in the intersection of philosophy and economics, Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, and as Chair of the
specifically on social choice and distributive justice: fairness and inequality, prior New Delhi Centre for Development and Human Rights. He has been an Adjunct
itarianism, and egalitarianism. Professor of Development and Human Rights in the Public Health Faculty of
Harvard University and a Professor in Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of
Roberto Gargarella has an SJD from the University of Chicago and is a researcher
International Studies. Sengupta has also served as an Executive Director of the
at the National Research Council for Science and Technology of Argentina as well
IMF and as administrative and technical head of the Planning Commission of
as Professor of Constitutional Theory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos
India, as its Member Secretary.
Aires. A former John Simon Guggenheim and Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow,
he has published extfnsively on issues of legal and political philosophy, as well as John Tasioulas is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College,
on US and Latin American constitutionalism. His latest book is Courts and Social Oxford. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University
Transformation in New Democracies (Ashgate 2006). and the University of Melbourne. His research interests are in moral, legal, and
political philosophy. Recent publications include 'Punishment and Repentance',
Alan Gewirth was the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor
Philosophy 81 (2006) and 'Customary International Law and the Quest for Global
of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago. He was an internationally
Justice', in A. Perreau-Saussine and J. B. Murphy (eds.), The Nature of Customary
renowned scholar who made important contributions in medieval political phi
Law: Philosophical, Historical and Legal Perspectives (Cambridge University Press
losophy, early modern philosophy, and ethics (especially the theory of rights).
2006). With Samantha Besson, he is co-editing a volume of new essays entitled
His lifelong devotion to teaching and research continued unabated after his 1982
The Philosophy of International Law for Oxford University Press.
retirement: When the University constituted its Human Rights Program in 1997,
Gewirth became a charter member of its board and also developed and taught its Leif Wenar is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. He has been a
primary course. He published two monographs in the 1990s and was at work on Fellow of the Princeton University Center for Human Values, the Murphy Institute
another, Human Rights and Global Justice, at his death in May 2004. of Political Economy at Tulane, and the Carnegie Council for Ethics and Interna
tional Affairs. He has published on a range of topics in political, legal, and moral
Osvaldo Guariglia is a Senior Researcher at the National Research Council for
philosophy.
Science and Technology of Argentina and Professor honoris causa at the University
of La Plata. A former Professor of the University of Buenos Aires, his research
interests include Aristotelian, Stoic, and Kantian ethics, as well as public ethics,
distributive justice and, more recently, economic and social human rights. His
latest books are Ethics and Human Rights in a Postmetaphysical Time (Buenos Aires
2002), and Morality: Universalistic Ethics and Moral Subject (in Italian, Naples
2002).
Regina Kreide teaches political and sociological theory at the J. W. Goethe Uni
versity in Frankfurt. She previously was Visiting Scholar at Columbia University
and Research Assistant at the Goethe University. Her research interests are human
rights, global justice, equality, transnational democracy, and quality of life. She is
currently working on a book about problems of global justice.
Thomas Pogge is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and Pro
fessorial Fellow in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the
Australian National University. His research interests include moral and politi
cal philosophy, Kant, and global justice. His latest books are World Poverty and
Introduction
Thomas Pogge
In his State of the Union Address of January 6, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt pro
claimed that 'freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere'. He set
forth four human rights in particular as guiding principles for a post-fascist world,
/
'attainable in our own time and generation'. These are still widely remembered as
Roosevelt's 'four freedoms', but their content needs to be recalled:
The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person tb worship God in his own way--everywhere in the
world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means eco
nomic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its
inhabitants--everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will
be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere
in the world.
Today, none of the human rights Roosevelt proclaimed is close to being fully
realized. Yet the struggle continues. The book before you addresses Roosevelt's
third freedom in particular. But we understand that all four freedoms are intercon
nected. Where fear and hostility reign, all human rights are more easily crushed
in the name of 'security'. And where freedom of speech and expression are pre
carious, information and debate about human rights violations are stifled. These
dangers are real today, as Roosevelt's four freedoms have few active defenders
among the rich and powerful anywhere. This ought not discourage the struggle
for human rights. But it can and does, of course, greatly exacerbate the burden of
human rights violations.
Sixty-six years after Roosevelt gave his historic speech, half of humankind are
still mired in severe poverty, sharing less than 2% of a now vastly more abundant
global product. And one third of all human lives still end in a premature death
from poverty-related causes. This massive persistence of severe poverty is the great
scandal of this globalized civilization and threatens its promised gains in peace,
stability, and prosperity.
2 Thomas Pogge Introduction 3
The essays collected in this volume are narrowly focused on providing a moral Ciudad Juarez (just across the border from El Paso), perhaps, where in the last
analysis of world poverty-more specifically, an analysis in terms of human rights. 10 years over 370 young women have been found murdered, often bearing marks
We are focusing here on severe poverty, or the very poor. This includes those living of rape and torture, and many more have disappeared.3 Others entrust their fate
in so-called extreme poverty, for whom 'a minimum, nutritionally adequate diet to traffickers who take millions of women and children far from home to be forced
plus essential non-food requirements are not affordable' (UNDP 1996: 222). But into abject prostitution and pornography.4
it also includes those somewhat above this extreme who live in constant peril of The very poor are typically unable to defend their civil and other legal rights
being rendered unable to meet their basic needs. effectively. They may be illiterate due to lack of schooling or preoccupied with
There are poor people in the more affluent countries who suffer social disadvan their family's survival. Or they may be compelled by social dependency to put
tage, exclusion, and indignity on account of their grossly inferior socioeconomic up with illegal treatment-as is inflicted on so many domestic servants who
position. Their 'relative' poverty falls outside the scope of our discussion, 'except are enduring, far from home, sexual or other forms of severe abuse from their
in those exceedingly rare instances where such people are so poor in the absolute employers. Such horrific fates of utter humiliation and despair are suffered by
sense that their access to basic necessities is as insecure as that of the very poor in millions of the very poor and yet remain completely unfelt by the more affluent.
the developing world. No Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy or John Steinbeck or Toni Morrison makes
An exact and applicable definition of poverty is important (Reddy and Pogge these experiences vivid to us.
2007), for instance iri tracking progress toward achieving the first of the Millen This volume and the seminars preparing it evolved from a UNESCO Project on
nium Development Goals proclaimed by the United Nations (UN). Such an exact Poverty and Human Rights launched in 2002 by a team of young professionals,
definition is less crucial for the more philosophical discussions of this volume. led by Mika Shino of the Section of Philosophy. The project was developed with
But, focusing on the monetary aspect of severe poverty alone, let me give a sense the guidance of Pierre Sane, who joined the Organization in 2001 as Assistant
of what sort of definition would make true what I wrote above: that half of Director-General for Social and Human Sciences. At our first planning meeting in
humankind are still mired in severe poverty. According to World Bank data, the Paris in June of2002, Sane drew a parallel between poverty and slavery, identifying
global median consumption expenditure in 2001 was $925 PPP 1993 per person.l as the key objective in the struggle against severe poverty its abolition in law.
This means that, in 2001, half the world's population lived on more, and half on This thought can seem odd. One may be drawn to think of the early colonists,
less, than what $925 could buy in the United States in 1993. To count as very poor in Jamestown perhaps, trying to end their deprivation by passing a law against
by this standard, a family of four living in the United States in 2007 would have to it. But reflection soon separates Sane's thought from such a pointless legislative
be living on no more than $5,500 for the entire year (www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm). exercise.
In trying to imagine what this would be like, bear in mind that half the world's The legal abolition of slavery did not boil down to passing a law against it.
population live below this threshold. In fact, the poorest sixth of humankind live, Slavery was not some kind of rogue conduct that had been left uncriminalized
on average, fully 70% below this median.2 and hence unpunished and undeterred. Rather, slavery was deeply embedded in
Severe poverty and the powerlessness it entails are all but impossible for us the legal and social order of the United States (and other countries), enshrined
affluent to imagine. Such poverty involves continuous and acute vulnerability in the Constitution, fugitive slave laws, and much else. Important components
to events over which one has no control: job loss, poor weather, illness, funeral of the US institutional order were designed to encourage, facilitate and enforce
expenses, theft, an accident, a police fine, an increase in taxes or food prices, and the enslavement of black people. Ending slavery in the United States involved
a wage reduction-any such event, and many more, can cut very poor persons not the mere passing of a law against it, but a thorough restructuring of its legal
or families off from basic necessities. The very poor are compelled to take risks. system toward an institutional design that discouraged, deterred, prevented, and
Many young women, often desperate to help their parents or siblings, leave home punished such comprehensive and permanent personal subordination.
in hopes of better incomes. Some risk their health in factories, enduring 60-hour Severe poverty today, while no less horrific than that experienced by the early
weeks of pressured monotony under heavy discipline-in the maquiladoras of American settlers, is fundamentally different in context and causation. Its persis
tence is not forced on us by natural contingencies of soil, seeds, or climate. Rather,
its persistence is driven by the ways that economic interactions are structured:
1 My calculation, based on iresearch.worldbank.orglPovcaINet and World Bank 2003a: 235. The
year 2001 is the latest for which full poverty data are available. Unless otherwise noted, '$' refers to the by interlocking national and international institutional arrangements. The mere
US dollar throughout. 'PPP' stands for 'purchasing power parities', which are further discussed in my fact that the poorer half of humankind consume under 2% of the global product
contribution to this volume.
These are the households that subsist below the World Bank's $1 per day international poverty
line, defined as $392.88 PPP 1993. On average, they fall 28.4% below this line (Chen and Ravallion 3 d. WW'.v.amnestyusa.orglwomen/juarez. Maquiladoras are export factories operated under highly
2004: 152 and 158, dividing the poverty gap index by the headcount index), hence 70% below $925 favorable terms that the Mexican government maintains to attract foreign investment.
PPP 1993. 4 d. WW'.V.hrw.orgiabout/projectsltraffcamp/intro.htrnl and WW'.V.unfpa.orgigender/violencel.htm
4 Thomas Pogge Introduction 5
(at market exchange rates) strongly suggests that severe poverty is wholly or very effectively to fend for their interests while the more affluent give scant weight to
largely avoidable today. We can avoid it-not by passing laws against it but-by these interests.
restructuring national and global legal systems so that everyone has real opportu And yet, our indifference is in decline. Our debates about globalization, initially
nities to escape and avoid severe poverty. mainly fuelled by painful adjustments within the rich countries themselves, now
Some countries are far along in achieving such designs nationally, typically by pay increasing attention to wages and working conditions in the poor countries.
complementing well-regulated markets with public outlays for education and a And we are beginning to understand how our own corporations and governments
social safety net. In these countries, we can say, severe poverty has been abolished are aggressively aggravating poverty abroad: by demanding that the poor countries
in law. Globalizing this achievement is more difficult, because it requires a series spend less on education and health care in order to service their debts to us;
of reforms, each meticulously planned and carefully monitored. by insisting that they extract from their populations rents for our intellectual
While I personally share Sane's emphasis on legal and institutional reform, property in drugs, seeds, compounds, production processes, and much else; by
other contributors focus more on the contributions that individuals, corpora denying their goods and workers access to our vastly more lucrative markets;
tions, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can and by enticing and pressuring thelr governments to spend billions on arms
and should make to the eradication of severe poverty. The essays here assembled imports. As British Chancellor Gordon Brown said at the World Economic Forum
are therefore complementary to some extent, but also diverge on some issues in Davos: 'I now sense that in 2005, hundreds, then thousands, then millions in
concerning why sever? poverty persists, how it can best be overcome, and what every continent are coming together with such a set of insistent demands [to fight
moral responsibilities various more privileged agents have to address it. poverty 1 that no politician, no government, no world leader can ignore them'
There is no disagreement in this volume about the deeper question whether (w ww.voanews.com/english/2005-0 1-29-voa36.cfm).
there is a human right to freedom from severe poverty. This is deliberate. We know, Let us hope Brown's prediction will prove correct. More important, let us
of course, that this issue has been and remains controversial. This controversy make this prediction correct. Without the popular pressure Brown foresees, the
led the UN to split its human rights law into two Covenants in the 1960s, a world's politicians, of rich and poor countries alike, will certainly make no real
split that enabled some countries-Belize, Botswana, Haiti, Mozambique, South progress against severe poverty--only that rhetorical progress of summits, dec
Africa, and the United States-to endorse civil and political human rights without larations, high-level working groups, and all that, which showcase dissimulation
having to endorse social, economic, and cultural human rights as well. Instead of and hypocrisy while debasing the language ('pledge', 'undertaking', 'intolerable',
revisiting this old debate, we focus on the formulation, justification, and prac 'concern', 'priority', 'regret', etc.) and enticing the unwary into believing that every
tical implication of a human right to basic necessities. Only when a candidate thing humanly possible is already being done in our behalf.
human right has been given the clear and full articulation we aim for here can There are historical examples of how ordinary people, acting together, can mor
there be a fruitful debate about its moral plausibility. And achieving such a clear alize politics. Here Sanes parallel to slavery is instructive once more. A crucial step
and full articulation is urgently needed for making real progress against severe in ending slavery was Great Britain's nineteenth-century initiative of enforcing,
poverty. unilaterally and worldwide, a ban on all maritime slave trade irrespective of a
When they are vague and fuzzy, proclamations of human rights easily become vessel's ownership, registration, port of origin, or destination. It is hard to see how
a substitute for real progress. Great battles are fought, and glorious victories won, this could have been perceived as being in the best interests, crudely understood, of
over rhetorical details that in the end make precious little difference to the real the British commercial elite or citizenry: Britain bore the whole cost of enforcing
world. People used to say that it is awful, regrettable, or troubling that so many its ban as well as additional opportunity costs from lost trade, especially with
children go to bed hungry and so many mothers must watch their children die Latin America. Though implemented by the government, the British anti-slavery
from diarrhea or some other cheaply treatable disease. Today we are more likely initiative was driven by a massive domestic mobilization of ordinary people who,
to say that the very poor have a human right to basic necessities, or even that their inspired by a deep religious or moral revulsion against slavery, gathered into an
basic human rights are violated. This change of language appeals to many of us as irresistible abolitionist movement (Drescher 1986). These ordinary people of all
we can now picture the poor not as shrunken wretches begging for our help, but stations-from dock workers to writers, from clerics to housewives-abolished
as persons with dignity who are claiming what is theirs by right. But it is still only slavery, just like that, once and for alL If they could do this, in one of Britain's finest
a new form of words, a rhetorical triumph: one in a long series of paper victories. hours, then we ordinary people from all continents can fulfill Brown's prediction
The real task is to end severe poverty on this planet. And in this task we are failing and abolish severe poverty.
badly, as illustrated by some 300 million premature deaths from poverty-related In the book before you, fifteen authors seek to contribute to this task by devel
causes since the end of the Cold War. oping and clarifying the arguments that make this task morally compelling. Taking
Severe poverty persists on such a large scale because it is self-reinforcing, hence for granted that a human right to basic necessities is undeniable, we focus on the
entrenched, in a context of great inequality: The very poor lack the resources concrete claims such a right entails. Our subtitle expresses this focus: Who Owes
6 Thomas Pogge Introduction 7
What to the Very Poor? The human rights of the poor do not merely remain Alvaro de Vita approaches the topic from a perspective similar to mine. He
unfulfilled, like those of the Jamestown colonists facing a severe winter. They emphasizes the importance of shifting part of the responsibility for severe poverty
remain unfulfilled by human choice. The persistence of severe poverty depends on and inequality from the national to the international level. And he argues for
human decisions at all levels-from large political decisions about the basic rules a justice (as opposed to a humanitarian) approach that focuses on the role the
of our national or global economy to small personal decisions about consumption, international economic order plays in the perpetuation of massive inequality.
savings, an4 NGO contributions. To make serious progress against severe poverty, Responding to those who object to any principle of international distributive
human agents must change some of their decisions and ways of decision-making. justice, de Vita defends such a principle and argues that, in light of it, we can
But which decisions and decision procedures, by which human agents, can plausi and should reshape the international order toward reducing severe poverty and
bly be criticized for contributing to severe poverty, for violating the human rights inequality.
of the very poor? What is a plausible assignment of responsibilities for eradicating While Marc Fleurbaey agrees with de Vita that we can regard poverty as a
such poverty? And what moral constraints are there on advancing the cause of violation of human rights in the sense that it is coercively imposed upon the
poverty eradication? This book seeks well-grounded answers to these questions, poor, he focuses more specifically on the oppressive nature of poverty itself as
which vindicate the practical importance of the human rights perspective on contrary to personal integrity. He argues that the way in which the global market
poverty eradication by giving a clear sense of direction to the collective effort to economy operates undermines the integrity of poverty-stricken individuals who
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end severe poverty III our tIme. are forced to act against their will and to make decisions they would not make
My opening essay argues that severe poverty should be classified as a human if their basic socioeconomic needs were met. A society that allows poverty to
rights violation insofar as it is a foreseeable and avoidable effect of how the persist is oppressive because it severely restricts the choices of the poor. If we value
world economy is currently structured. Quite apart from any positive duty the personal integrity as a human right then we must recognize severe poverty as an
more privileged may have to help the very poor, we have a negative duty not to avoidable violation of it.
harm them through our uncompensated contribution to imposing upon them Regina Kreide argues that the slow pace of mitigating global poverty is caused in
a global institutional order which is so designed that it foreseeably produces part by political problems that mirror some still unresolved theoretical questions.
avoidable human rights deficits on a massive scale. Describing how the affluent She argues for a path between individualist theories (like Campbell's), which she
are involved in shaping and upholding the global institutional order and how criticizes for imposing overly demanding obligations on everyone while neglect
this order systemically sustains world poverty, I conclude that the affluent are ing the structural conditions that cause poverty, and institutional theories (like
harming the global poor and have a shared negative responsibility to work toward mine), which she criticizes for undervaluing the utility of development aid for
the eradication of severe poverty worldwide. poverty reduction. She thus proposes an integrated view that considers features
By contrast, Tom Campbell argues that the issues of who causes poverty and of poverty itself. In particular, she concludes that poverty is an infringement
how it comes about are not decisive in deeming it a violation of a human right. of social autonomy and in this way a human rights violation that should be
Rather, the violation arises primarily from the fact that poverty itself is a state of eradicated.
great misery and suffering whose worldwide eradication is today quite feasible. Elizabeth Ashford finds my view that the global economic order causes a great
The fact that it can be eradicated at such low cost to the world's affluent makes deal of severe poverty to be compelling but also defective for supporting only
its continuation especially egregious. In order to end the perpetuation of these negative duties. She examines the case for positive duties as supported by Kantian
human rights violations, Campbell offers the idea of a redistributive scheme, in the and utilitarian schools of thought and argues for a morally grounded human right
form of his Global Humanitarian Levy (GHL) that would be based on his principle to be free from poverty, which entails both negative and positive duties. Having
of humanity and implemented globally through an organization like the UN. argued that poverty violates fundamental human interests, Ashford concludes
Rather than addressing how poverty has come about or can be relieved, John that there are positive and negative duties that should be borne primarily by
Tasioulas examines the sense in which there can actually be a human right to be organizations that significantly impact the poor as well as by most affluent people.
free from poverty based on interests shared by all of humanity. He contends that Like the previous three authors, Alan Gewirth focuses on the human depri
we can assert the existence of such a right even if it is currently unenforceable and vations suffered while in a state of poverty. He argues that persons lose their
even if the positive obligations that are correlative to it have not been fully specified capacity to act as moral agents because their freedom and their well-being are
and allocated to identifiable duty-bearers. He goes on to argue that the interest undermined by their lack of the means to subsistence. Efforts to reduce poverty
based account of human rights obviates the need to choose between interactional should target all persons whose capacity for moral agency is at risk, rather than
and institutional understandings of human rights. In conclusion, he considers the merely compatriots or other specific groups. Furthermore, Gewirth elaborates the
ways in which such an account is and is not committed to asserting the priority of important role democracy must play in fully realizing the basic human right to be
rights over duties. free from poverty.