World Poverty and Global Duties: Are the Affluent Countries Violating the Human Rights of the World's Poor?

JULIO MONTERO

European Consortium for Political Research

Congreso; European Consortium on Political Research, 4th Conference; 2007

European Consortium for Politival Research

In this presentation I discuss the thesis by Thomas Pogge that global poverty constitutes a massive human rights violation on the part of the affluent countries. I start by stating a set of conditions that must obtain before it can be said that a human right has been violated. Then I show that, while the affluent countries may be in several ways responsible for global poverty, these conditions do not obtain. Therefore, they are not violating the human rights of the very poor, or at least not for the reasons invoked by Pogge.