Reflections on Defining, Understanding, and Measuring Poverty in Terms of Violations of Economic and Social Rights Under International Law

Alicia Ely Yamin

Alicia Ely Yamin, J.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health and a Staff Attorney in the Law and Policy Project at Columbia School of Public Health. As a founding member of a grass-roots human rights organization in Mexico, Ms. Yamin was engaged in extensive fact-finding, advocacy, and community education. Much of her current work, which focuses on the intersections between health and human rights, continues to involve Mexico and Latin America.

During the twentieth century, the different discourses for dealing with poverty have primarily failed due to their focus on the impoverished people themselves rather than on the underlying societal conditions causing poverty. The moralistic discourse fails to take into account structural factors that are beyond individual control. The economic efficiency discourse views poverty as a failure of productivity where individuals' personal choices are irrelevant. The problem with this discourse is that the impoverished who live in resource poor regions will continue to be impoverished due to the lack of acknowledgment of them as unique individuals.

The best approach would be to look at poverty from a rights based discourse than from a moralistic or economic efficiency discourse. Taking a social justice perspective, responses to poverty must involve an empowerment of people to transform the oppressive social relations that limit their choices about life and the capability to live with dignity. From this perspective, the playing field is viewed as unequal and the state is held responsible for curing this unevenness. Also from this perspective, the impoverished are viewed as individuals and it is seen that their human dignity is being violated. Poverty is approached as the product of oppression and thus a recognition must be made of the cause of this oppression before a cure for it may be found.

Amartya Sen is in favor of a rights based approach to poverty as evidenced through his capability theory. This theory involves an evaluation of the capabilities of people to achieve a degree of basic functioning in their lives. In looking at commodities and resources, these things are seen as directly equating to the adequacy of living standards, which is one of the means of freedom. Sen views the plight of the impoverished unable to relieve their hunger as a motivational underpinning of poverty. Seeing this is crucial in order to understand how a poverty stricken person is being deprived of her rights. In using Sen's theory with a rights based discourse, a universal background standard can be applied to evaluate poverty-related deprivations of human rights.

Vol. IV, Number 2, p. 273

Revised July 17, 2003 (MD)