Anti-poverty v. the international economic legal order? A legal cultural critique

Abstract

International economic law (“IEL”) poverty reduction policies have at times been successful, yet there is no question that poverty persists throughout the world despite significant global economic growth in the last half century. In many respects, poverty appears to be resistant to the poverty reduction policies of what is now a very sophisticated and comprehensive international economic legal order. This chapter considers one of the possible sources of that failure—the many different legal cultural disconnects or discontinuities that arise between the international economic legal order, its anti-poverty policies and the legal arenas within which poverty exists. This chapter will consider those disconnects from a systemic perspective, though there will necessarily be reference to specific examples of IEL anti-poverty reduction efforts to provide examples of those troublesome legal cultural disconnects. This chapter will not, however, assess or dissect the failures of specific IEL anti-poverty reduction policies. Rather, this chapter will assume that all IEL anti-poverty policies, successful or not, face legal cultural issues that may undermine those efforts. Those issues would then be better handled for being identified and understood, allowing IEL poverty reduction policies a better chance for success, while at the same time minimizing any potential harms to the different legal and other cultures involved.