The violation of human rights as a determinant of poverty*

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between poverty and human rights, with particular emphasis on situations where issues of ethnicity and discrimination are present. Hitherto, the relationship between poverty and human rights has not been clearly understood and little empirical research is available on the matter. As a result, seemingly sharply contrasted perspectives continue to exist. The prevailing view in economic development is that poverty alleviation programmes are so diverse and encompassing that it will be via poverty alleviation programmes that human rights will be fulfilled. However, in the human rights community, the prevailing view is that violations of human rights are a major cause of poverty and, as a corollary, to deny people their rights is, by definition, a way to keep them poor. In fact, both approaches hold substantive truth and value added. Human rights should be regarded as a human endowment, and thus as a form of capital. They are, to that extent, as important as all the other forms of capital that participate in the development process and in the process of poverty alleviation. To disregard the importance of human rights is tantamount to keeping people in poverty.