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4 Geo. J. on Fighting Poverty 273 (1996-1997)
Reflections on Defining, Understanding, and Measuring Poverty in Terms of Violations of Economic and Social Rights under International Law

handle is hein.journals/geojpovlp4 and id is 279 raw text is: REFLECTIONS ON DEFINING, UNDERSTANDING, AND MEASURING POVERTY IN TERMS OF VIOLATIONS OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW Alicia Ely Yamin* hen it is not accompanied by a / igh of resignation at the end of a discussion about the de- cline of the work ethic, poverty is increas- ingly treated by politicians, international lending institutions, and academics alike as arising out of issues of productivity rather than from distributions in the economic and social structure of society. This article has three objectives. First, starting with the premise that poverty is a rubric for marginalization, hopeless- ness, isolation, and disempowerment, I argue that both poverty and inequality are principally reflections not of prevail- ing relations of production or of charac- ter flaws in the poor, but rather of structures and values that deny the dig- nity and rights of human beings.1 Sec- ond, I suggest that the social and eco- nomic rights violations implicated by poverty can best be understood in terms of the mechanisms by which people are denied the capabilities to secure their own dignity and well-being rather than in terms of pure resource levels.2 Third, despite skepticism in the human rights community about the utility of develop- ment indicators, I argue that certain types of poverty and development indica- tors that measure what it is that we actually care about from a human rights perspective can play a critical role in assessing whether economic and social rights have been realized.' Thus, Part I introduces the distinctions between a rights-based discourse and two alternative discourses of poverty and argues that the former provides a better frame- work for understanding why we care about poverty. Part II presents some of the impli- cations of shifting to a rights framework for addressing poverty and introduces Amartya Sen's capability theory, which measures basic capabilities as opposed to income levels derived from an invariate basket of goods. I propose that Sen's capability theory and its practical application in the United Nations Development Pro- gram's (UNDP's) Human Development Index (HDI), are well-suited to fleshing out the historically ill-defined methods of evaluating poverty in terms of social and economic rights deprivations. Alicia Ely Yamin, JD., M.PH., is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health and a Staff Attorney in the Law & Policy Project at Columbia School of Public Health. As a founding member of a grass-roots human rights organization in Mexico, Ms. Yamin was engaged in extensive fact- finding, advocacy, and community education. Much of her current work, which focuses on the intersections between health and human rights, continues to involve Mexico and Latin America. VOLUME TV, NUMBER 2 (SPRING 1997) 273

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