COURTESY  :  www.ohchr.org/

Eradicating poverty 

Eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for
sustainable development, and meanwhile, sustainable development is one of the most
important means to reduce poverty. Therefore, in order to effectively achieve the goal of
Eradicating poverty set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is necessary to
make innovations in the ideas, systems and action plans from the perspective of integrating
poverty reduction, human rights and development.
1. Regarding the innovations in ideas, it is essential to optimize the value of eradicating
poverty based on the spirit of the right to development. To fulfill this target, the following two
mistakes should be avoided. One mistake is to misunderstand the purpose of poverty
reduction. Eradicating poverty itself is not the final aim. It is just an essential condition for the
people living in poverty to fully realize their rights and freedom. The other mistake is to
narrowly discuss poverty eradication which is restricted to the single form of civil and
political rights, or economic, social and cultural rights. Actually, the poverty eradication
should be guided by the value of the right to development. This further means that poverty
eradication should be oriented by the right to development rather than abstract human rights,
and meanwhile the effects of the right to development on poverty reduction should be
highlighted. The reason is that the right to development has consistently adhered to the ideas
of the people-centered development, which takes equality of opportunity for development as
its core, and at the same time， take social justice and even global justice as its basic principle.
On this point, the right to development, as a comprehensive human right, has transcended any
single form of human rights no matter in subject, object, space or scope, and thus can play an
irreplaceable role in eradicating poverty everywhere in all its forms and dimensions. There is
no doubt that the existing international human rights laws have played a significant role in
protecting the human rights of people living in poverty. However, it is not enough to solve the
worldwide poverty problem only by using the existing international human rights laws (e.g.,
the International Covenant on the Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). We regrettably find that the word “poverty” or “the

1
Many thanks should be given to Mr. Gui Xiaowei, who is now a lecturer of the department of sociology in
Wuhan University and got his Ph.D. in the University of Copenhagen in Denmark; Ms. Song Dingbonan, who is
now a visiting scholar in the Erasmus School of Law of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands; Ms.
Wang Bei, who is from the school of law of the University of Edinburgh in UK. They participate in the discussion,
editing, proofreading and translation of this text draft.
2
poor” is not mentioned in any text of the core human rights legal documents (e.g., the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on the
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or the Convention on the Rights of the Child).
According to some statistics, the incidence of poverty in many poor countries has increased
after their accession to the two covenants on human rights.
Therefore, the innovations in the ideas of poverty eradication should be made by introducing
the perspective of the right to development. In specific, the concept of poverty reduction
should be upgraded to the “Right- to- development based poverty reduction,” and meanwhile
the relationship between “poverty” and “human rights” should be optimized to the “right to be
free from poverty with development.” Only in this way, can we study and resolve the issue of
poverty reduction in a better manner under the framework of the Declaration on the Right to
Development and the relevant UN agendas and resolutions for sustainable development.
2. Regarding the innovations in actions, it is crucial to construct a pluralistic and adaptable
poverty reduction action model which can be independently chosen by any country as an
alternative option. According to the Article One of the Declaration on the Right to
Development, in order to fully realize “all human rights and fundamental freedoms,” there are
three available action models, which are “participate in,” “contribute to,” and “enjoy”
economic, social, cultural and political development. The so-called “participate in” model is
aimed to establish a two-way interaction model between the external forces and the people
living in poverty and to ensure that poor people can actively participate in the whole poverty
reduction process including decision-making, policy formulation, and project implementation.
The so-called “contribute to” model refers to that it is essential to provide more development
opportunities for the people living in poverty, especially to ensure that they could be
effectively involved in the development process through enhancing their participation
capacity. The so-called “enjoy” model means that development outcomes must be shared and
at the same time distributive justice must be achieved. However, these three models are far to
be enough to realize the right to poverty reduction. I thus suggest to reconsider this issue by
adopting at least eight action models, which are poverty alleviation through industrial
development, project introduction, financial aid, education and training, technological
assistance, environmental compensation, social security, and emigration.
3. Regarding the innovations in guarantee system, it is necessary to establish a system based
on the legal rights and obligations on poverty reduction. The right to be free from poverty is
not just a kind of moral right, nor is poverty reduction just alms to the poor. The rule of law is
one of the most effective routes to eradicate poverty. Thus the poverty should be addressed
according to the law and the system of legal rights and obligations on poverty eradication
should be constructed. The obligation subject of poverty eradication should be the
governments and the international society. The legal obligations of poverty eradication could
be categorized as four types: the moral obligations in soft law (e.g., charitable donation), the
contractual obligations in private law, the institutional obligations and mandatory obligations
in public law, the interventional obligations and the relief obligations in social law. The
current situation is that there are too many moral obligations but too few compulsory