[afro-nets] Food for a globally unjust thought

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Food for a globally unjust thought
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Human Rights Reader 117

IT IS ON THE BASIS OF A BROKEN SOCIAL CONTRACT AND OF GLOBAL
INJUSTICE THAT WE SPEAK OF POVERTY AS A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION.

1. The critical evaluation of human rights (HR) in a country ad-
dresses generally disagreeable issues, such as abuse of power,
tyranny by those in positions of political responsibility, dis-
respect for the law, corruption, misappropriation of wealth, in-
appropriate use of public funds and other offenses.

2. The promotion of independent institutions such as unions,
chambers of commerce, professional associations, universities,
the press and NGOs can institutionalize controls over government
by civil society who can (with the needed passion, sense of re-
sponsibility and sound judgment) formulate concise political de-
mands that keep the processes and outcomes of state activities
in check. In this work, it has to be kept clear that strategic
and tactical considerations are a means and not an end to
achieve the respect of HR. The end is to build a lasting democ-
ratic political culture of actively and consistently claiming
human rights and the nobler the end, the more shameful it is to
remain indifferent to the means being used by HR activists in
their work to pursue their ultimate end. For example, when the
means of international development cooperation are used against
the interests of the poor or their HR are abused by foreign aid,
any further such cooperation must be stopped and any resumption
made conditional upon very clear criteria being met.

3. Those who keep silent about HR violations --only because
these violations are committed in countries with whose political
leaders for whatever reason they enjoy harmonious relations--
have to face up to the fact that the honesty of their commitment
will be open to question. So, when HR advocacy serves only to
lend legitimacy to lip-service or to a feeble and dwindling com-
mitment to equitable development, this can be devastating to the
HR movement.

4. As this Reader has said before, part of the reason that peo-
ple do less than they might is that while they feel 'charitable
urges' towards the world's poor, they feel no duties. Therefore,
the developed world has a growing store of unfulfilled duties
towards the poor people in the developing world and these duties
have been growing in the era of capitalist globalization. Cer-
tainly, the modern world is not organized in a way that safe-
guards the rights of most of its people. The link between rights
and duties can only exist within a moral community that has the
political will to enforce HR duties --and, mind you, capitalist
globalization has been expanding the moral community that we
live in worldwide and is thus importantly affecting our and oth-
ers' rights and duties.

5. To help others is morally good; yet, at the same time, we
more often than not deny that we have duties in that respect.
Knowledge of the dire situation of the poor, by itself, brings
about duties! We are literally "debtors of duties".

6. The capitalist view, on the other hand, proclaims that market
relations --based on 'legitimate' transactions-- do not entail
any duties to those who lose out through the market. We counter
this view by saying that if we know that the market inherently
creates losers, that knowledge alone imposes duties on us to
help the losers to claim their legitimate rights.

7. Ultimately, our protection and promotion of HR is related to
the protection and promotion of individual freedoms --not be-
cause those rights lead to freedom, but because those rights are
defined in terms of that freedom. Freedom is seen as the absence
of imposed constraints; increased poverty conceptually entails a
loss of freedom and, let us not forget, money serves to remove
some of the important constraints. What is being said here is
that levels of poverty affect levels of freedom and since the
level of freedom enjoyed determines the existence or non-
existence of rights, poverty does indeed affect the rights that
people can be said to enjoy or not to enjoy. Ergo, as said many
times, poverty reduction can be defended in terms of the respect
of what we know are inalienable rights. It must also be noted
that levels of freedom can be redistributed without anybody suf-
fering an actual loss of rights!

8. Cynics, of course, say that the poor themselves are to be
held responsible for their poverty and hence for their un-
freedom. This leads to the accusatory finger being pointed at
the actions of the poverty-stricken themselves.

9. The growth-mediated fight against poverty imposed on govern-
ments in the Third World by neoliberalism generates harmful ef-
fects. The very system that enriches some requires the maintain-
ing and deepening of the poverty of large numbers of others. In
other words, the neoliberal system has a structural need for
poverty. [Keep patently in mind that redistribution to the poor
is NOT achieved by securing them social services as health, nu-
trition and education plus the matching infrastructures; "the
eradication of poverty is not achieved by providing social ser-
vices, Mr World Bank (and Mr Sachs)!"). The eradication of pov-
erty is not feasible from within the very same economic system
whose deep logic requires the perpetuation of poverty; that is
why we talk about embarking in the struggle for the-right-to-be-
free-of-poverty.

10. So, the question we are left with is: Why do we still need
even discuss formulating a conceptual basis for an approach that
views poverty as a violation of human rights? By now, it should
be clear to all of us that, sooner or later, the prevailing
global political and economic system will enter into collision
with the HR-based approach to poverty alleviation; so, we better
be prepared for this. There will always be tension; the absence
of tension is not a value in itself. (But danger acknowledged
means danger averted.).

11. The question of poverty has always been considered a local
problem in which other societies can be occasionally involved in
the name of solidarity or cooperation, but not in the name of
fulfilling a legal obligation.

12. Now, there seems to be a perceived global obligation for the
international community to root out poverty in all societies in
the world so that the presence of poverty can be considered as a
dereliction of duty and thus a violation of the right to non-
poverty in the world. If what is said here is genuine, we would
be on the right track. But, so far, the international community
has failed to organize a credible system of global re-
distribution, so it can be objectively regarded as a violator of
the right to non-poverty --despite all the PRSPs and MDGs jargon
and talk (and charade?). The idea of solidarity as a duty serves
as a foundation for the associated duty to make poverty a global
problem to be duly solved.

13. This begs yet another couple of questions: Are Rich coun-
tries responsible for poverty in poor countries? Is their re-
sponsibility situated upstream --in the sense that rich coun-
tries have, from the beginning, hampered the process of develop-
ment in poor countries? Or is it downstream --in the sense that
the rich are guilty of leaving the poor in their misfortune?
I will leave you to respond to these closing questions.

Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn

--
Mostly adapted from International Social Science Journal,
No.180, UNESCO, 2004:
K. Leisinger, Overcoming poverty and respecting HR: 10 points
for serious consideration;
K. Dowding and M van Hees, Poverty and the local contingency of
universal rights;
E-M. Mbonda, Poverty as a violation of HR: towards a right to
non-poverty;
C. Arnsperger, Poverty and HR: The issue of discrimination.