Africa/Global: Poverty as a violation of human rights: poverty or injustice?

This paper from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics discusses the proposal that poverty ought to be regarded as a violation of human rights and therefore as a condition that ought to be abolished. This proposal has been presented as a new paradigm in the fight against poverty that has the potential to galvanise an effective strategy for ending poverty through an international human rights framework. The essay explores this proposal from a philosophical standpoint, and argues that the proposal would be strengthened by including compassion or humanitarianism as part of its moral basis and achieved without diluting either the moral force or the radical implications of regarding poverty as a violation of human rights.