First Lecture: National Taiwan University, Taipei

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First Lecture National Taiwan University, Taipei

• World Poverty and Human Rights
• Thomas Pogge
• Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International
  Affairs, Yale University
• with additional affiliations at
• the Australian Centre for Applied Philosophy and
  Public Ethics (CAPPE)
• and the University of Oslo Centre for the Study
  of Mind in Nature (CSMN)

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MDG-1 World Poverty
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• The Human Cost of World Poverty

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A Reality Check

• While the Bank reports a stream of good news from
  the poverty front, the FAO has recently (June)
  reported that the number of chronically
  undernourished people (Target 2 of MDG-1) is
  exceeding 1 billion for the first time ever. In
  the 1990s and until 2006 this number was reported
  to be around 800 million. One important cause
  food prices doubled 2006-08 (partly on account of
  rapidly rising bio-fuel demand).
• www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/

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The Effects of World Poverty
 
 

• Among ca. 6800 million human beings, about
• 1020 million are chronically undernourished (FAO
  2009)
• 2000 million lack access to essential drugs
  (www.fic.nih.gov/about/plan/exec_summary.htm),
• 884 million lack safe drinking water
  (WHO/UNICEF 2008, 32),
• 924 million lack adequate shelter (UN Habitat
  2003, p. vi),
• 1600 million have no electricity (UN Habitat,
  Urban Energy),
• 2500 million lack adequate sanitation (WHO/UNICEF
  2008, p. 7),
• 774 million adults are illiterate
  (www.uis.unesco.org),
• 218 million children (aged 5 to 17) do wage
  work outside their household often under
  slavery-like and hazardous conditions as
  soldiers, prostitutes or domestic servants, or in
  agriculture, construction, textile or carpet
  production (ILO The End of Child Labour, Within
  Reach, 2006, pp. 9, 11, 17-18).

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At Least One Third of Human Lives

• some 18 million per year or 50,000 daily are
  ended prematurely by poverty-related causes,
  often cheaply preventable through more adequate
  nutrition or improved access to drinking water,
  sanitation, rehydration therapy, vaccines, or
  other medicines or health services.
• WHO World Health Organization, Global Burden
  of Disease 2004 Update, Geneva 2008, Table A1,
  pp. 54-59

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Millions of Deaths
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The Human Right Least Realized

• Everyone has the right to a standard of living
  adequate for the health and well-being of himself
  and of his family, including food, clothing,
  housing and medical care and necessary social
  services, and the right to security in the event
  of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood,
  old age or other lack of livelihood in
  circumstances beyond his control
• Article 25(1), Universal Declaration of Human
  Rights 1948

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• The Economic Magnitude of the Poverty Problem

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Global Inequality

• At current exchange rates, the poorest half or
  3,400 million people have less than 3 of global
  household income?compared to 2 had by the most
  affluent 0.01 (14,000) of US taxpayers. The per
  capita income ratio between the top 5 and the
  bottom 40 is 2001.
• Spreadsheets from Branko Milanovic, World Bank
• Saez Tables and Figures Updated,
  elsa.berkeley.edu/saez/
• At current exchange rates, the poorest half of
  the worlds population, some 3,400 million, have
  ca. 1 of global wealth ? as against 3 had by
  the worlds 1125 billionaires (2007!).
• www.iariw.org/papers/2006/davies.pdf, table 10A,
  p. 47
• www.forbes.com/2008/03/05/richest-billionaires-peo
  ple-billionaires08-cx_lk_0305intro.html

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Shares of Global Wealth2000 poorest versus
richest households
Calculated in market exchange rates so as to
reflect avoidability of poverty. Decile Ineq.
28371. Quintile Ineq. 851. Year 2000, 125
trillion total. (www.iariw.org/papers/2006/davies.
pdf, table 10A, p. 47)
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• Using its latest International Poverty Line
  (1.25 per day or 38 per month, in 2005 intl
  dollars), the World Bank would count 1377 million
  poor people in 2005, living 30 below this line
  on average. Total deficit 76 billion p.a.
  0.17 of world income in 2005.
• With a more realistic poverty line of 2.50 per
  day or 76/month (2005 intl dollars), the Bank
  counts 3085 million poor living 45 below this
  line on average. Total deficit 507 billion p.a.
  1.13 of world income in 2005.
• (econ.worldbank.org/docsearch working paper
  4703, pp. 27, 44-45).

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IPL Level and Global Poverty Gap
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• The Official Response Moving the Goal Posts

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The Grand Promise to Halve Poverty by 2015 First
Version

• 1996 World Food Summit in Rome the number of
  extremely poor is to be halved during 1996-2015.
  This implies an annual reduction by 3.58 (50
  over 19 years).
• We pledge our political will and our common and
  national commitment to achieving food security
  for all and to an on-going effort to eradicate
  hunger in all countries, with an immediate !
  view to reducing the number of undernourished
  people to half their present level no later than
  2015.
• www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.htm

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The Grand Promise to Halve Poverty by 2015
Second Version

• 1996 World Food Summit in Rome the number of
  extremely poor is to be halved during 1996-2015.
  This implies annual reduction by 3.58.
• 2000 Millennium Declaration the proportion of
  extremely poor among the worlds people is to be
  halved 2000-2015. This implies annual decline by
  3.35 (40 in 15 yrs).
• to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of
  the worlds people whose income is less than one
  dollar a day and the proportion of people who
  suffer from hunger.
• www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm

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Goal 1 Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty

• Target 1. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
  proportion of people whose income is less than
  US1 a day
• Target 2. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
  proportion of people who suffer from hunger
• UN The Millennium Development Goals Report
  2008, p.6 www.un.org/millenniumgoals

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MDGs 4 and 5

• By the year 2015, to have reduced maternal
  mortality by three quarters, and under-five child
  mortality by two thirds, of their current rates.
• (United Nations Millennium Declaration,
  A/res/55/2, dated 8 September 2000, article
  19(3))
• Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the
  under-five mortality rate (MDG-4)
• Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015,
  the maternal mortality ratio (MDG-5)
• (The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008,
  p. 24)

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The Grand Promise to Halve Poverty by 2015 Third
Version

• 1996 World Food Summit in Rome the number of
  extremely poor is to be halved during 1996-2015.
  This implies an annual reduction by 3.58.
• (www.fao.org/wfs).
• 2000 Millennium Declaration the proportion of
  extremely poor among the worlds people is to be
  halved 2000-2015. This implies annual decline by
  3.35 (40 in 15 yrs).
• MDG-1 as subsequently revised by the UN
  the proportion of extremely poor among the
  population of the developing countries is to be
  halved 1990-2015. This implies an annual
  reduction by 1.25 (27 over 25 years).

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www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDG-Page1.pdf
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/sgreport2002.pdf?OpenEl
ement
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MDG-1 A Promise Diluted
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The Impact of the IPL level on the Banks Poverty
Count

• It is very obvious that the lower the Bank sets
  its IPL, the fewer poor people it will count. It
  is less obvious how the level of the IPL is
  affecting the charted evolution of poverty a
  lower poverty line will reduce the poverty count
  in each year and may therefore have no effect on
  the assessed poverty trend at all. (The Bank uses
  2005 PPPs to convert its IPL into 2005 local
  currency units (LCUs), then national consumer
  price indices to convert it further into LCUs of
  other years.)

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Changes in World Poverty
http//econ.worldbank.org/docsearch, working
paper 4703, Table 7, pp. 44-45
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• Little Help and Too Much Harm

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Three Claims

• Today, most premature human deaths and other
  deprivations are causally traceable (but for)
  injustice in existing supranational institutional
  arrangements
• for which we (citizens of the more powerful
  countries) are co-responsible
• in violation of human-rights-correlative negative
  duties of justice.

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Counter-Argument

• Poverty is evolving differently in the various
  developing countries and regions. This shows that
  local (e.g., national) factors account for the
  persistence of severe poverty where it persist.

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Conceptual Answer to the Counter-Argument

• It merely shows that local factors are
  co-responsible for the persistence of severe
  poverty. It does not show that local factors are
  solely responsible. Example Differential
  learning success of students/pupils in the same
  class.

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• .

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Empirical Answer to the Counter-Argument
Specific Examples of Poverty-Aggravating Global
Institutional Arrangements

• Global institutional order works against HR
  fulfillment directly rules of trade and finance
  (with asymmetrical protectionism) permissive
  environmental rules (fostering greenhouse gases
  and resource depletion).
• works against HR fulfillment indirectly, by
  incentivizing and sustaining HR-violating regimes
  and policies in poor countries international
  resource, borrowing, treaty, arms privileges
  intellectual property rights in seeds and
  medicines race to the bottom in
  labor standards.
• The facilitation of dirty-money flows
  exemplifies both draining poor countries of
  revenues through tax evasion and embezzlement
  (US850-1000 billion p.a.) and fostering
  corruption and oppression in those countries.
• www.ffdngo.org/documentrepository/GFI20Report.pdf
  .

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Human Rights and Human Responsibilities

• Insofar as HR deficits are not humanly avoidable,
  no one is responsible for them.
• Insofar as HR deficits are avoidable through
  active intervention, there are unmet
  responsibilities to protect and to fulfill
  (positive duties).
• Insofar as HR deficits are knowingly caused
  or aggravated through active intervention,
  there are human rights violations, unmet
  responsibilities to respect (negative duties).

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When is an Institutional Order HR-Violating?

• If and only if the following four conditions all
  hold
• The institutional order is associated with a
  massive human-rights deficit among its
  participants.
• This association is reasonably avoidable through
  some alternative design of that institutional
  order.
• The association in (1) is foreseeable.
• Its avoidability (2) is also foreseeable We can
  know that the alternative institutional design
  would do much better in terms of giving
  participants secure access to the objects of
  their human rights.

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Moral Responsibility

• When an institutional order is unjust
  (e.g., by foreseeably producing massive and
  foreseeably avoidable human-rights deficits),
  then those who without compensating reform and
  protection efforts are actively cooperating in
  designing or imposing this order are harming
  (e.g., violating the human rights of, violating a
  human-rights-correlative negative duty toward)
  those who suffer the avoidable human-rights
  deficits.

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• Global Institutional Order

4 Privileges Pharmaceuticals
Labor Standards
Dirty Money
Protectionism Pollution Rules
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What is the Trend?

• Growth in international inequality (inequality
  in national average incomes) has stalled except
  with respect to the poorest countries (the
  bottom billion).
• Nonetheless, global inequality continues to
  rise, mainly because of mounting intranational
  inequality, which traps in severe poverty many
  more people (e.g., in India) than just those
  bottom billion.
• Rising global inequality ensures that severe
  poverty persists on a massive scale even while
  the rising global average income makes such
  poverty ever more easily avoidable.
• Best source Branko Milanovic, World Bank e.g.
  Worlds Apart, Princeton UP 2005.

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• With a more realistic poverty line of 2.50 per
  day or 76 per month (in 2005 international
  dollars), the Bank would count 3085 million poor
  people, living 45 below this line on average.
  Total deficit 507 billion p.a. 1.88 of 2005
  global household income.
• econ.worldbank.org/docsearch working paper 4703,
  pp. 27, 44-45
• In the last 30 years, the top 0.01 percent of US
  taxpayers achieved a 7-fold expansion of their
  share of national (from 0.86 to 6.04), and of
  global household income (from 0.25 to 1.93).
• Best sources Saez Tables and Figures Updated,
  elsa.berkeley.edu/saez/
• This gain for the richest 14,000 US households
  roughly equals the entire poverty gap of the 3085
  million living below 2.50 (2005 international
  dollars) per day.

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Human Rights as Moral Claims on (Global)
Institutional Arrangements

• Everyone is entitled to a social and
  international order in which the rights and
  freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be
  fully realized (Article 28)
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

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• Where Should We Focus our Reform Efforts?

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On a Political Reform that

• ? constitutes an enduring structural reform
• ? effectively symbolizes the idea that all human
  lives are of equal value
• ? benefits a strong, well-organized faction
  of the global elite (new profit opportunities,
  image improvement)
• ? is scalable and can be increased and/or
  adjusted as experience warrants
• ? strengthens those with an objective interest
  in reform (empowerment of the global poor)
• ? is exemplar of realistic moral leadership,
  genuine moralization, global public good.

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What is the Trend?

• Global inequality continues to rise rapidly,
  mainly because of what is happening within
  countries. In the last 30 years, the top 0.01
  percent of US taxpayers achieved a 7-fold
  expansion of their share of national income (from
  0.86 to 6.04), and of global income (from 0.25
  to 1.93). This gain for the richest 14,000 US
  households is roughly equivalent to the entire
  poverty gap of the 3.08 billion people living
  below 2.50 (2005 international dollars) per day.
  
• Best source Branko Milanovic, World Bank
• e.g. Worlds Apart, Princeton UP 2005

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The Grand Promise to Halve Poverty by 2015 Three
Versions

• 1996 World Food Summit in Rome the number of
  extremely poor is to be halved during 1996-2015.
  This implies an annual reduction by 3.58.
• (www.fao.org/wfs).
• 2000 Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG-1) the
  proportion of extremely poor among the worlds
  people is to be halved 2000-2015. This implies
  annual decline by 3.35 (40 in 15 yrs).
• MDG-1 as subsequently revised by the UN
  the proportion of extremely poor among the
  population of the developing countries is to be
  halved 1990-2015. This implies an annual
  reduction by 1.25 (27 over 25 years).