Thomas Pogge's Argument About Global Poverty

Poverty as Human Rights Violations
It is common to assume that when someone’s human rights have been violated, we can name the perpetrator. Human rights violations, we usually think, happen when people interact. Most of us also assume that just by going about our daily lives, we are not doing any harm to those who live in poverty. Sure, we could do more to help the global poor, for instance by donating to effective charities, but on a day-to-day basis we are not really harming them.

Thomas Pogge challenges both of these assumptions. He says that not all human rights violations are interactional, that is, something that one person does to another. They can also be institutional. And, he says, international institutions, like those that regulate international trade, do perpetuate global poverty. In fact, these institutions foreseeably and avoidably violate people’s rights to food, housing, and healthcare. And since those of us who live in industrialized nations participate in, and benefit from, these institutions, we are part of a system that violates the human rights of the poor.