Bill Easterly is disappointed with Amnesty International for blurring of its human rights focus to include poverty:
Poverty does not fit this definition of rights. Who is depriving the poor of their right to an adequate income? There are many theories of poverty, but few of them lead to a clear identification of the Violator of this right. Moreover, human rights are a clear dichotomy – someone violates your rights or they do not. But the line between poor and not-poor is arbitrary – it is different in different countries, and on a global scale, many still argue what is the right dividing line that constitutes poverty. So calling poverty a “human rights violation” does not point to any concrete actions that the “violator” must stop in order to restore rights to the “violated.”
I’m going with Bill on this one. To me, the “rights-based approach” to humanitarian aid has looks more like a good ideology than a good idea. It does all the things an ideology should do: it inspires the mind, it seizes the moral high ground, it mobilizes the ground troops, and (most importantly) it provides a supreme unifying framework–the ulimate coordination mechanism.
The UN and NGOs do love their coordination.
Unfortunately, I fear the rights-based approach to poverty is about as effective as its ideological predecessor (see central planning) and has even less intellectual content. Bill outlines some of the reasons, while Conor Foley has lamented some of the more human casualties of the rights crusaders.
I’d add that an inviolable right to poverty requires time, property, or sacrifice by others–a compulsion that may violate more fundamental rights.
I could wave aside the philosophical quarrels if I thought the rights approach to poverty worked in practice. Unfortunately, I fear it reinforces all of the mistakes of past aid: it ignores the agency and the incentives of the poor; it focuses less on creating opportunities andstructuring incentives, and more on public works and handouts. As an advocacy and fundraising mechanism, however, the rights approach may be unmatched. We can thus safely assume it will be around for some time.
8 Responses
Very interesting discussion on the human-rights approach to humanitarian aid. I would agree that by including poverty as a focus when discussing human rights, you do cross into the realm of ideology which while useful for inspirational purposes does not lead to taking the right actions in order to confront poverty effectively.
I would agree with Mike@Advorec that a concrete definition of poverty is needed in order for it to be addressed in the context of rights-based as well as with Bill Easterly when he says that poverty is different in every country and the so-called violator of the human right is difficult to identify because it is hard to point out concrete actions that the violators have committed. Therefore, specific knowledge about what poverty is to a distinct region is crucial.
Whether or not you label poverty as a human rights violation, the approach that you take to confronting it is what really matters. Structuring incentives and creating opportunities for poverty-stricken individuals are the best ways to create long-term solutions that will reduce future need for humanitarian need while public works and handouts will exacerbate these needs. Although I am a humanitarian neophyte, I would say that certain elements that lead to or maintain poverty are human rights violations but overall poverty can be attributed to a lot of incidences that couldn’t possibly be labeled as so. I would concur that for fundraising purposes it is a good idea to promote this label because most people are not going to look into this argument too deeply and would be content to label poverty as a human rights violation and open their pocketbooks all the more willingly. After all, it is not so important that the people who aren’t engaged in humanitarian work first-hand actually understand poverty so much as they provide the means for people who do understand it to do something about it.
This is a fascinating blog and I being an intern at a Humanitarian nonprofit it is very interesting and uncommon to hear excerpts of the philosophical humanitarian discussion. I look forward to your future postings!
Timothy Marti
Intern at ASCEND, A Humanitarian Alliance
http://ascendalliance.org
First, define poverty.
When we do, we find that many of the basic needs, which poverty undermines, are already within what we consider human rights.
Water, food, safety, schooling, a home, a social group to belong to, the right to speak your mind and the right to make it up before you do.
All that poverty pushes to the side. Should they be clustered under one epithet, and then, by doing that, excluding all those who have it, but are still poor in the country where they live?
I can see a danger in naming poverty as a human right violation and prefer to accept that we have all the ingredients already covered in the declaration of human rights.
If poverty is just considered as position above or below a threshold money line, I agree that nobody can say there is a right to earn a certain amount or more than your neighbour! But I think that if we consider the Sen'approach of capabilities and possibilities as a starting point for all human being, being poor can be assimilated as a lack of this right – as no instruments's ownership -to fully express the potential to improve the life.
Countries may have different views of extreme poverty, but the right, in essence, remais the same. It is similar to the issue of right to adequate housing, it is a highly contextualized right. In many cases, the extreme poverty is a direct consequence of government actions, and people should have that legal framework to protect them. Moreover,it is that narrow minded thinking that argues that necessarily there has to be a violator who takes concrete steps to stop the violation that prevented many people to have a chance of real protection, such as the climate refugees.
My experience of the rights-based approach from the humanitarian rather than development/poverty side is that it is often directly coupled with a community-based or participatory approach, focusing on agency and will, on empowering and enabling, and on providing opportunities or interventions that are wanted by and useful to beneficiaries.
As an analytical framework, a rights-based approach to poverty may also be valuable in ensuring that aid does not discriminate against any group in a way that excludes people, puts them at further disadvantage or facilitates rights violations (e.g. an aid project that inadvertently increases domestic violence). This has less to do with a rights approach centered on rights violations and more to do with a rights approach centered on ensuring equal access to rights. This kind of rights-based approach would involve considering issues of accessibility to disabled people, for example.
It is the claim/duty duality that is the at the heart of the human rights based approach to development. Take a look at Urban Jonsson's work http://www.rwi.lu.se/news/pastact/UJpresentation.pdf. See how it might be applied to your work.
Or reread Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader" and try to look at Hanna as both rights holder and duty bearer. Then answer her question: "What would you have done?" Apply this to your work.
From your writing I think you already apply a human rights based approach to much of your development work. You just don't frame it that way.
It is the claim/duty duality that is the at the heart of the human rights based approach to development. Take a look at Urban Jonsson's work http://www.rwi.lu.se/news/pastact/UJpresentation.pdf. See how it might be applied to your work.
Or reread Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader" and try to look at Hanna as both rights holder and duty bearer. Then answer her question: "What would you have done?" Apply this to your work.
From your writing I think you already apply a human rights based approach to much of your development work. You just don't frame it that way.
In my work with Conditional Cash Transfers, I've encountered this debate, where some people feel that cash to the poor is a right whereas others feel it is instrumental. The instrumentalists don't believe in conditions per say, just conditions insofar as they encourage great behavior and fail to exclude the targeted recipients.
I remember when I was doing a lot of work around orphan issues, having conversations about the rights-based framework. I could never figure out what it brough to the table as an analytical framework. As you say, it may galvanize a good fund raising event, though.