Law and poverty: the legal system and poverty reduction

Cause and effect: exploring the relations between law and poverty Authors: L. Williams; A. Kjönstad; P. Robson Publisher: Comparative Research Programme on Poverty , 2008
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Poverty tends to be considered as an economic subject area rather than a legal one. And yet, a society’s distribution of income and opportunity is the outcome of its legal system which may encourage or fail to prevent various forms of marginalisation. Even when individuals are responsible for their poverty, modern notions of citizenship enshrined in national and international law entitle them to various forms of state protection. Under these circumstances, the law becomes an instrument for redistribution. Much of this work is still cutting-edge but a start was made at a workshop held in Onati, Spain in 1999 which aimed to explore the theme of “Law and Poverty”. The twelve papers presented at the workshop are now reproduced in a book brought out by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) of the International Social Science Council. The book is divided into four sections which look into:
>poverty as a legal construction
>the responsibility for alleviating poverty
>establishing legal entitlements
>legal initiatives to address poverty

The paper titles comprise of:
>the right to development as a basic human right
>cross-border reflections on poverty: lessons from the United States and Mexico
>poverty as a violation of human rights: the Pinochet case and the emergence of a new paradigm
>the politics of child support
>the state, laws and NGOs in Bangladesh
>exclusion and rights
>poverty and property – human rights and social security
>the effect of legal mechanisms on selective welfare strategies for needy persons: the Greek experience
>gender mainstreaming as an instrument for combating poverty
>does alcohol and tobacco legislation help reduce poverty: the evidence from Sri Lanka
>child labour: a threat to the survival of civilization
>labour organization and labour relations law in India: implications for poverty alleviation
The book comes to the following broad conclusions:
>improved understandings of and approaches to poverty require broad analysis that takes into account different angles, frameworks and lenses
>while poverty is culture and nation-specific, it also has an increasingly important global >dimension which needs to start being taken into account
>support initiatives for poor people are more powerful when framed as citizenship rights – >particularly in the context of social exclusion and gender inequality
>more effective poverty reduction in an age of globalisation requires reconsidering traditional >distinctions between public and private areas of responsibility

Climate change: feed it and weep or lead and reap

Jeffrey Sachs
Australia will reap important benefits from the carbon pollution reduction scheme. Properly, the Government has left itself considerable flexibility on several points, which will depend heavily on what other countries do. But the value of the scheme lies not in the details but in three more basic considerations. Australia can now lead economically, technologically and diplomatically in the global effort that lies ahead.
A global climate control regime is on its way. It will almost surely not be a global emissions trading system, but a regime in which participating countries commit to national targets implemented through national means. The Government's proposals can work whether or not global trading comes to pass.
Until now Australia, like the United States, has absented itself from a carbon policy. Some may have viewed this as clever "free riding" on the exertions of others, but that view was short-sighted and wearing thin. A global system will come, and the laggards will face sharper economic dislocations than those who have taken a running start.
In the US, for example, the financial sector has basically stopped financing conventional coal-fired powerplants. Nuclear power is also a huge question mark for market financing, given public worries and the lack of an agreed national strategy. The automotive industry, long betting on cheap oil and a lack of public interest in climate change, is flat on its back. Australia will spare itself the risks of backing into a stalemate on energy technology and infrastructure investment by charting a course consistent with long-term climate change mitigation.
Emissions trading can support the transition to sustainable energy in Australia but will surely not be enough, a fact acknowledged by the Government's initiation of complementary programs such as the Climate Change Action Fund, to spur the adoption of innovative energy technologies.
Transformative technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration at coal-fired power plants, large-scale solar power, plug-in hybrids, green buildings and perhaps nuclear power, are even more important in achieving a low-cost transformation.
Australia stands to benefit enormously by speedier action on technological development and demonstration. As the world's largest coal exporter, and as a continent with vast solar potential, Australia could find itself a sustainable energy technology leader in just a few years. I think the same could be true about nuclear power in Australia, despite the obvious grounds for public reservations.

One of the greatest benefits from the Government's new initiative will be geopolitical. Australia needs to be at the global negotiating table, not only to defend its national interests but also to help broker the global grand bargain. There is probably no world leader better placed than Kevin Rudd to help intermediate the complex pas de deux that will begin between China and the US next year. Only a solid agreement between the two largest emitters can underpin global actions beyond mere gestures.
China will have to understand that it can no longer hang back and call on rich countries to lead first. China is already rich enough, and emitting enough, to bear major global responsibilities. In any event, the US Senate will not ratify an agreement that puts US industry at a competitive disadvantage. At the same time, China will not move unless it sees a way to combine its continued rapid economic growth with emissions restraint.
Since Australia and China are close neighbours and major trading partners, and share such basic challenges as coal-based power sectors, increasing water stress and solar potential, Australia is especially well placed to help identify global principles and a technological pathway that can accommodate the concerns of China, the US and Europe.
I don't subscribe to every detail of the green paper. I would have leaned more heavily on upstream carbon taxes than downstream carbon permits as the way to put a market price on carbon with least administrative difficulty and most long-term predictability. I am more sympathetic to nuclear power. But Australia has taken a huge step forward to protect its economy, its fragile climate-stressed ecology, its long-term technological leadership and its geopolitical role.
Jeffrey Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a special adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, on the Millennium Development Goals. He is author of Common Wealth: Economics For A Crowded Planet.

Why no bailout for the hungry?

Could all those bailout billions been put to better use? How about feeding poor, starving people?
From the Washington Post:
"The amount of money used for the bailouts in the U.S. and Europe -- people here are saying that money is enough to feed the poor in Africa for the next three years," said Stephen Muchiri, head of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation.
No question: On its face, there is an obscene disparity between the trillions of dollars that will be spent by Western governments to keep financial markets from breaking down and the paltry $12.3 billion pledged in July by governments and other donors in Rome to tackle the world food crisis. Even just in the United States, the Department of Energy appears to see little problem with loaning GM $5 billion to purchase a nearly worthless Chrysler, but the White House couldn't find the cash to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program from $5 billion to $12 billion a year so as to cover everyone. These are the kinds of funding gaps that drive caring people insane.
But suppose that the U.S. and various European governments had decided not to bail out their banking systems, and in consequence, credit markets completely collapsed and world trade ground to a halt. It's quite possible that global poverty and hunger would drastically worsen. If farmers have no access to credit, they are unable to pay for seed and fertilizer and labor. If shipping companies have no access to credit, food doesn't move across the oceans. If enough banks collapse, mass unemployment is sure to follow.
I do not mean to privilege one form of spending over another. I think one of the clear lessons from the efforts of governments to address the financial crisis is that when properly motivated, political leaders will throw astonishing amounts of money at a problem. If we can find $700 billion to bail out our banks, surely we can fund national health care and end starvation. But it's also not an either-or question. We would all likely be worse off, in Africa and the United States, if the wheels came completely off the global economy.
― Andrew Leonard

It's Time for Poverty to Have the Spotlight

by Chelsea Wieber
After a few fumbled attempts on their own, global financial leaders gathered in Washington D.C. last weekend to develop a joint plan to prevent the spread of the financial crisis.
Imagine if they focused just a fraction of that attention on alleviating global poverty. After all, high food and fuel prices pushed an additional 75 million people further into poverty this year.
"When food prices peaked and began to come down, despite the fact that conditions within poor countries remained hugely adverse, attention already started to wane," development economist Jeffry Sachs told Reuters. By contrast, the world's finance ministers jumped to commit incredibly large sums of money when credit markets started to fail — a crisis that continues to hold the world's attention.
"The amounts that are needed (to help the poor grow more food) are in the low billions of dollars and we're talking every day now about a new commitment of hundreds of billions for this and hundreds of billions for that," says Sachs. "The truth about poverty is that the poor don't need very much."
In other words, $700 billion — or whatever the astronomical total the worldwide bailout turns out to be — would go a long, long way.

The Real North Korean Crisis

by Manasi Sharma
When you think of North Korea, you may first think of the ongoing nuclear weapons debates and political squabble with the U.S. Yet according to the latest United Nations report, the most significant problem affecting North Koreans is the current shortage of food there.
The UN report found that more than three-quarters of North Korean families have cut their food intake to two meals per day. Even city dwellers are facing higher food prices. A recent Time magazine article says many children have stopped attending school due to hunger, while their parents search for food instead of going to work.
North Korea hasn’t seen such a devastating food crisis since the 1990s, when a famine took more than a million lives. Time blames the government for the current food shortage. In the 1990s, government officials privatized food distribution to some extent so that farmers could sell grains and food throughout the country. The result was that famished North Koreans could still find food. But in 2005, according to Time, the government broke up these markets and confiscated grain from farmers, leading to the current shortfall of production. Destructive floods in 2007 further hampered the country's agricultural production.
The UN also reported a rising number of children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea. The food crisis guarantees more hunger-related deaths according to an expert on North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
North Korea’s leadership does not want to pursue market reform according to Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He says allowing open markets to emerge in the state dominated food distribution sector would imply a significant change of Pyongyang’s policies. Major reforms are not a part of North Korean culture or government, a regime that requires government permission to own a cell phone or computer. However, without changes in policy and perhaps even ideology, North Koreans will continue to experience health-related problems if the government is unable to provide basic necessities such as food.
The World Food Program has expanded their food aid program in North Korea in hopes of reaching 6.5 million people. Without additional help from donor countries, North Koreans may see the 1990s famine repeat itself.