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Punishing States That Cause Global Poverty

Brooks, Thom

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Abstract

The problem of global poverty has reached terrifying proportions. Since the end of the Cold War, ordinary deaths from starvation and preventable diseases amount to approximately 250 million people, most of them children. Thomas Pogge argues that wealthy states have a responsibility to help those in severe poverty. This responsibility arises from the foreseeable and avoidable harm the current global institutional order has perpetrated on poor states. Pogge demands that wealthy states eradicate global poverty not merely because they have the resources, but because they share responsibility for its continuation. For Pogge, global poverty is more than a wrong imposed on the poor: it is a violation of human rights and a crime. In this paper, I critically examine Pogge's claim that global poverty is a crime. My aim is to demonstrate that Pogge's conclusions do not follow from his arguments. That is, if affluent states have a negative duty to assist those in severe poverty, their duty is not absolute because they are not fully responsible for this poverty. Moreover, if global poverty is one of the greatest crimes against humanity, then it seems inappropriate at best to champion proposals, pace Pogge, that lets the guilty parties walk free.

Citation

Brooks, T. (2007). Punishing States That Cause Global Poverty. William Mitchell law review, 33(2), 519-532

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2007
Deposit Date Nov 16, 2012
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Mitchell Hamline law review
Print ISSN 0270-272X
Publisher William Mitchell College of Law
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 33
Issue 2
Pages 519-532
Publisher URL http://www.wmitchell.edu/lawreview/Volume33/33_II.html

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