Freedom from Poverty As a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very
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OXFORD Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right Who owes what to the very poor? Edited by Thomas Pogge The Philosopher’s Library series UNESCO Publishing FREEDOM FROM POVERTY AS A HUMAN RIGHT Freedom from Poverty as aHumanRight Who Owes What to the Very Poor? Edited by THOMAS POGGE 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © UNESCO 2007 All rights reserved Published jointly in 2007 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 7, place de Fontenoy, 75007 Paris, France, and Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp, United Kingdom The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this book and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN UNESCO: 978–9–23–104033–7 ISBN Oxford University Press: 978–0–19–922631–3 978–0–19–922618–4 (pbk.) 13579108642 To Alan Gewirth 1912–2004 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 of Poverty: Towards a New Paradigm in the Fight 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 Sané, former Secretary-General of Amnesty International and currently the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO, has viii 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 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 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 with the team: Stephen Marks, Arjun Sengupta, Paul Hunt, Christine Chinkin, Chaloka Beyani, Lucie Lamarche, Paolo Pinheiro, Miloon Kothari and Rio Hada. I would like to thank the UNESCO Team on Poverty and Human Rights, begin- ning with Mrs. Feriel Ait-Ouyahia, the coordinator, who worked hard to realize the project with me: Annali Kristiansen, Kristina Balalovska, Marlova Jovche- lovitch Noleto, Beatrice Maria Godinho Barros Coelho, Paolo Fontani, and Firmin Eduardo Matoko. I would also like to thank Rekha Nath and David Mollica for 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 Section, Moufida Goucha, as well as by my colleagues at UNESCO for the project: Victor Billeh, René Zapata, and Hans D’Orville. While putting the finishing touches on his contribution to the present volume, 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. Alan Gewirth was a great pioneer in teaching and writing about human rights who made important contributions also in medieval political philosophy, early modern philosophy, and ethics. He was born in Manhattan in 1912 and received his AB from Columbia University in 1934. After two years of graduate study 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 1946–7 at Columbia on the GI Bill, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1948. He taught at the University of Chicago until he retired in 1982 as the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor. Gewirth served as president of the Amer- ican Philosophical Association and the American Society for Legal and Political 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 and Applications (1982), The Community of Rights (1996), and Self-Fulfillment (1998). At the time of his death, he was working on a new book, Human Rights 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. Mika Shino Teamleader of the Poverty and Human Rights Project Section of Philosophy and Human Sciences UNESCO, Paris Headquarters Contents List of Contributors xi Introduction 1 Thomas Pogge 1. Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation 11 Thomas Pogge 2. Poverty as a Violation of Human Rights: Inhumanity or Injustice? 55 Tom Campbell 3. The Moral Reality of Human Rights 75 John Tasioulas 4. Inequality and Poverty in Global Perspective 103 Álvaro de Vita 5. Poverty as a Form of Oppression 133 Marc Fleurbaey 6. Neglected Injustice: Poverty as a Violation of Social Autonomy 155 Regina Kreide 7. The Duties Imposed by the Human Right to Basic Necessities 183 Elizabeth Ashford 8. Duties to Fulfill the Human Rights of the Poor 219 Alan Gewirth 9. Extreme Poverty in a Wealthy World: What Justice Demands Today 237 Marcelo Alegre 10. Responsibility and Severe Poverty 255 Leif Wenar 11. Global Poverty and Human Rights: The Case for Positive Duties 275 Simon Caney 12. The Right to Basic Resources 303 Stéphane Chauvier x Contents 13. Poverty Eradication and Human Rights 323 Arjun Sengupta 14.