Global Poverty, Human Rights and Correlative Duties

JULIO MONTERO

The Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence

The University of Western Ontario Faculty Law Press

Lugar: Ontario; Año: 2009 vol. 22 p. 79 - 92

0841-8209

Does the fact that my actions cause someone to lack access to the objects of her human rights make me a human rights violator? Is behaving in such a way that we deprive someone from access to the objects of her human rights, even when we could have avoided behaving in such a way, sufficient to maintain that we have violated her human rights? When an affluent countries pursues domestic policies that will foreseeably cause deprivation abroad in order to improve its already prosperous economy, has this country violated the human rights of the very poor by doing so? It may be tempting to reply to this questions by maintaining that whenever we cause, or contribute to the cause of, someone else's lack of acces to the objects of her human rights, we are human rights violators. I will call this view the Causal Thesis. In this articule I maintain that the Causal Thesis is mistaken. In partciular, my claim is that only when there is an infringement of some perfect duty correlative to a human right can we conclude that a human rights violation has taken place.