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

Collected here in one volume are fifteen cutting-edge essays by leading academics which together clarify and defend the claim that freedom from poverty is a human right with corresponding binding obligations on the more affluent to practice effective poverty avoidance. The nature of human rights and their corresponding duties is examined, as is the theoretical standing of the social, economic and cultural rights. The authors largely agree in concluding that there is a human right to be free from poverty and that this right is massively violated by the present world economy which creates huge unfair imbalances in income and wealth among and within countries. This searing indictment of the status quo is all the more powerful as the authors endorsing it exemplify diverse philosophical methods and moral traditions and also highlight different aspects of poverty and global institutional arrangements.
This volume will be of great interest and value to academics working in the fields of philosophy, political science and international relations, as well as to undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines. It will also be a crucial aid and challenge to practitioners in international governmental organizations (such as the UN and its agencies) and NGOs who think of their work in human-rights terms. Indeed, in view of the magnitude of the human rights deficit at issue, any moral citizen has reason to engage with the arguments of this book. And the book makes this possible for most in that, throughout, even the most complex aspects of rights theory is discussed in clear, direct language, making the text accessible to specialists and lay readers alike

Readership: Scholars and students of political theory, development studies, economics, ethics, international law, and international relations.

Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation , Thomas Pogge
2. Poverty as a Violation of Human Rights: Inhumanity or Injustice? , Tom Campbell
3. The Moral Reality of Human Rights , John Tasioulas
4. Inequality and Poverty in Global Perspective , Ã?lvaro de Vita
5. Poverty as a Form of Oppression , Marc Fleurbaey
6. Neglected Injustice: Poverty as a Violation of Social Autonomy , Regina Kreide
7. The Duties Imposed by the Human Right to Basic Necessities , Elizabeth Ashford
8. Duties to Fulfill the Human Rights of the Poor , Alan Gewirth
9. Extreme Poverty in a Wealthy World: What Justice Demands Today , Marcelo Alegre
10. Responsibility and Severe Poverty , Leif Wenar
11. Global Poverty and Human Rights: the Case for Positive Duties , Simon Caney
12. The Right to Basic Resources , Stéphane Chauvier
13. Poverty Eradication and Human Rights , Arjun Sengupta
14. Enforcing Economic and Social Human Rights , Osvaldo Guariglia
15. The Right of Resistance in Situations of Severe Deprivation , Roberto Gargarella
Bibliography
Index

Authors, editors, and contributors


Edited by Thomas Pogge, Professor, Department of Political Science , Columbia University
Contributors:Thomas Pogge is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University
Tom Campbell is Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, Canberra
John Tasioulas is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford
�lvaro de Vita is Professor Associado of Political Science at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
Marc Fleurbaey is research director at CNRS-CERSES (Paris), a member of the Institut d'Economie Publique (Marseilles), and a Lachmann Fellow at the London School of Economics
Regina Kreide teaches political and sociological theory at the J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt
Elizabeth Ashford is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
Alan Gewirth was the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago
Marcelo Alegre is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires
Leif Wenar is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory at Oxford University
Stéphane Chauvier is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Caen, France
Arjun Sengupta is one of India's leading economists who moved between economic research and teaching and policy making at the highest levels
Osvaldo Guariglia is a Senior Researcher at the National Research Council for Science and Technology of Argentina and Professor honoris causa at the University of La Plata
Roberto Gargarella has a JD from the University of Chicago and is Professor of Constitutional Theory at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires