Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2013
Abstract
Poverty unquestionably detracts from the human rights mission. Modern human rights law recognizes a broad range of rights - for example, "to life, liberty, and security of person" and to adequate "food, clothing, and medical care."1 Any number of those rights might go unrealized in conditions of extreme poverty. However, human rights law has always been partly aspirational. For those seeking to improve the lives of the poor, the key question is not what rights exist but how to make those rights operational. What does human rights law actually require of states? And how might its obligations benefit the poor?
Publication Information & Recommended Citation
Hakimi, Monica. "Human Rights Obligations to the Poor." In Poverty and the International Economic Legal System: Duties to the World's Poor, edited by K. N. Schefer, 395-407. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013. (Condensed and slightly modified version of M. Hakimi, "State Bystander Responsibility." Eur. J. Int'l L., 21, no. 2 (2010): 341-85.)
Included in
Human Rights Law Commons, International Law Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons