Poverty is a violation of human rights

For one thing, the existing radical inequality is deeply tainted by how it accumulated through one historical process that was deeply pervaded by enslavement, colonialism, even genocide. Many are quick to point out that we cannot inherit our ancestor’s sins. Indeed. But how then can we be entitled to the fruits of these sins: to our huge inherited advantage in power and wealth over the rest of the world? If we are not so entitled, then we are, by actively excluding the global poor from our countries and possessions, contributing to their deprivations.

Moreover, the present causes even of the persistence of severe poverty are by no means exclusively domestic to the countries in which it persists. The asymmetries inherent in the current global economic (WTO) regime are well documented: it allows the rich countries to collect royalties on patented seeds and drugs while continuing to favour their own companies through tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping duties as well as export credits and huge subsidies to domestic producers. That these arrangements are unjust and hugely damaging to the global poor has come to be widely recognised even among politicians and bureaucrats, who continue to block reform while blaming one another.

To be sure, many developing countries are run by corrupt and incompetent leaders, unwilling or unable to make serious poverty-eradication efforts. But their ability to rule, often against the will and interests of the population, crucially depends on outside factors. It depends, for instance, on their being recognised by the rich countries as entitled to borrow in their country’s name, to confer legal title to its resources, and with the proceeds to buy the weapons they need to stay in power. By assigning these privileges to such rulers, on the basis of their effective power alone, the rich countries support their banks and secure their all-important resource imports. But they also greatly strengthen the staying power of oppressive rulers and the incentives toward coup attempts, especially in the resource dependent countries.

More generally, bad leadership, civil wars, and widespread corruption in the developing countries are not wholly home grown, but strongly encouraged and sustained by the existing international rules and extreme inequalities. The rulers and officials of these countries have vastly more to gain from catering to the interests of wealthy foreign governments, corporations, and tourists than from meeting the basic needs of their impoverished compatriots.

Are the rich countries violating human rights when they, in collaboration with Southern elites, impose a global institutional order under which, foreseeably and avoidably, hundreds of millions cannot attain “a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights §25)? The Declaration itself makes quite clear that they do when it proclaims that “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realised” (§28).