scholarly journals Exploration of Poverty and Human Rights Violation: A Legal Analysis

In light of human rights, poverty has multidimensional faces, so it is quite complicated to define the term poverty. Some scholars have argued that poverty is a cause and consequence of human rights violation, whereas, rest of others found that poverty itself is a violation of human rights. So it is not clear to what extent poverty violates human rights. This ambiguity leads to some other issues such, the exact definition of poverty, the approach of human rights, the link between discrimination and poverty, whether the poverty line standard maintains equity, the legal obligations of duty holders, and the human rights approach in incorporate in poverty-reducing plans. All through the world, there are various types of human rights discriminatory laws that exist and which lead to poverty. It can be said that State actions fail to reduce poverty owing to the absence or inadequacy of policies and programs and the lack of appropriate government expenses, in cases where resources are available. This paper is made with the purpose to clarify the term human rights and poverty. It is necessary to draw a link between human rights and poverty. This paper also has some other purposes, such as, try to find out reasons for poverty, giving importance to the duty bearer obligations, and designing the poverty reduction strategies under the human rights approach.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-179
Author(s):  
Alessandro Suppa ◽  
Pavel Bureš

SummaryNowadays, an important role in the world is played by Multinational Corporations (MNCs). They hire, produce, and influence the international economy, but also, they exploit, pollute. Their business activities might have a worldwide effect on human lives. The question of the responsibility of MNCs has drawn the attention of many scholars, mainly from the study field labelled “Business and Human Rights”. The present paper does not examine the topic under the same approach. The authors aim at presenting the issue in a broader perspective, exploring the concept of due diligence both in international and corporate law. In this paper, authors strategically use the uniformity of national legislations as a possible and alternative solution to the issue. They are aware of three fundamental factors: 1) the definition of MNCs needs to be as clear as possible, so to avoid any degree of uncertainty; 2) the outsourcing phenomenon interacts with that definition; 3) in case of no possibility to include outsourcing in the definition of MNC, the original question arises in a significant way.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
John-Philippe Essiagnon Alavo ◽  
Emefa Adzowa-Sika Cogbe ◽  
Xiangmei Li ◽  
Gershom Mwalupaso Endelani ◽  
Ekram Abdalgadir Eltom ◽  
...  

The government of Togo reintroduced Farmer Input Support Program (FISP) as one of its Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) in 2002. Since the introduction of the program, the studies that evaluate its effects on income have focused either on fertilizer or seed component, but not on both, which made it a challenge to find out what improvements in small-scale farmers’ productivity can be attributed to FISP as a whole. Using Propensity Score Matching technique with collected data from 150 randomly surveyed households in the Kara region of Togo, the authors of the study estimated the impact of FISP on beneficiary households’ output from maize production. The results show that FISP augmented household annual maize income by 30.8% and total household income by 13.9% for both 2016/17 and 2017/18 cropping seasons. However, even though FISP is achieving its objective of improving small-scale farmers’ income, this increment is still not large enough to take households above the poverty line, and the effects of FISP to reduce overall poverty is also limited.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajuruchukwu Obi ◽  
Sanelise Tafa

South Africa was privileged to be part of the MDGs agenda which was adopted in 2000. One of the aims of MDGs was to reduce extreme poverty by half in 2015. For that reason, South Africa integrated policies and strategies to rid poverty by half to that of United Nations (UN). Through all the combined policy approaches, South Africa has successfully achieved the target of halving the population living below PPP$1.25c per person per day. Whichever threshold used, the results showed that the percentage share of people living below poverty line has now decreased from 11.3 per cent in 2000 to 4.0 per cent in 2011. However, these reports are not reflecting the exact poor’s experiences because at household level there is still an outright poverty. Therefore, if the national poverty report gives a good picture about South African poverty status whereas there is still prevalence of poverty at household level, there are high chances that wrong policies in regard to poverty reduction strategies will be wrought. Hence this paper focuses on the determinants of household poverty in South Africa. The sole aim of this paper is to assess the determinants of household poverty in South Africa. The reviewed literature on determinants of poverty in South Africa would enable policy makers to see the effect of demographic characteristics on poverty in South Africa. Thus, strategies and policies aimed at alleviating poverty in South Africa can be directed to the discussed factors.


Author(s):  
Paul Nelson

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), endorsed by 189 governments at the Millennium Summit, propose a concerted global effort to reduce the incidence of severe poverty and many of its most serious manifestations over a twenty-five-year period. The MDGs offer crucial insights into the politics of poverty and poverty reduction in international affairs. Their political dimensions can be analyzed in terms of agency, the nature and limits of accountability, the use and manipulation of quantitative goals for political ends, the dangerous illusion that MDG objectives can be accomplished in large part by mobilizing more development assistance, and the MDGs’ distinctly apolitical approach to the structural causes of poverty. The MDG initiative should be situated in three ongoing streams of debate and discussion: the debate over the relative priority of growth and of human development for poverty reduction; the tension between the assertion of rights and the enunciation of donor-driven goals as the political engine of poverty reduction; and the debate over the roles of markets and of state direction and regulation. While the MDGs concentrate on increasing aid flows to reduce the incidence of poverty and its manifestations, international trade and finance arrangements too often impede rapid progress. This is evident in water privatization, trade rules, and anti-retroviral medicines for HIV/AIDS patients. A way forward is to integrate the MDGs more deeply with human rights guarantees. Donors, for example, must take seriously the 2002 Draft Guidelines for the application of human rights to poverty reduction strategies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Karska ◽  
Karol Karski

Modern international law defines a very narrow definition of mercenarism. It does not include all aspects of this phenomenon as it was known and understood for centuries. At the same time the emergence of new forms of mercenary-related activities is observed. The terms ‘foreign fighters’ and ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ should be analysed in this context inter alia from a legal perspective. A question needs to be answered if those existing regulations relating to mercenaries can apply to these terms. It is also important to note how both mercenaries and their activities are perceived under international law. The international legal analysis of factual and legal measures undertaken by states towards foreign fighters and foreign terrorist fighters is also interesting. Frequently these activities concern not just the fighters alone but apply also to all of us. This requires us to look at them in the context of international human rights law. These issues are the subject of current works undertaken within the scope of international organisations. un Security Council adopted resolution 2170 (2014) and 2178 (2014) regarding foreign terrorist fighters. The un General Assembly and un Human Rights Council also tackle these issues. The activity of foreign fighters and foreign terrorist fighters on one side and the activities of the states in reaction to this activity on the other side are also monitored inter alia by the un Working Group on the use of mercenaries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mawunyo Dzidza ◽  
Ian Jackson ◽  
Ametefee K. Normanyo ◽  
Michael Walsh

This paper assesses the level of poverty in Ghana after three decades of successive implementation of numerous poverty reduction strategies including Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) by various governments of Ghana. The Keta municipality in the Volta region, where artisanal fishing thrives, was chosen as a representative sample of the whole country. The authors identified eleven artisanal fishing communities in the selected area using systematic sampling. Data were collected on household consumption patterns. This process was used to determine the profile of poverty using the latest upper poverty line of Ghana and the Greer and Thorbecke (1984) poverty formula. Research findings show that the various poverty alleviation methods implemented over three decades by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) significantly failed as they have not produced any meaningful effect on poverty reduction in the sample area. Finally, this paper offers further suggestions regarding how this poverty gap may be bridged using alternative methods.


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