Eradication of extreme poverty, a global legal obligation – UN expert tells world governments
GENEVA (28 September 2012) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda, urged States
to embrace and use a long-anticipated set of guidelines* on extreme poverty and human rights adopted by the United
Nations Human Rights Council.
“The Council’s embracing of these Principles represents an explicit recognition by States that the existence of extreme
poverty is an urgent human rights concern and a moral scandal, whose eradication requires concrete and coordinated
action at the national and international level,” said Ms. Sepúlveda, who drafted the guidelines on the basis of a decade
of international consultations.
“The Guiding Principles seek to provide for the first time a global standard in the fight against extreme poverty,
focusing on the rights of people living in poverty,” the expert noted. “This is a practical tool for policy makers which
will guide States in designing their public policies, particularly their poverty eradication efforts, based on a human
rights based approach.”
The adoption of the Guiding Principles on extreme poverty and human rights marks the end of a long process that began in
2001, when the then UN Human Rights Commission first proposed the elaboration of such guidelines. Based on international
human rights norms and values, the Principles provide guidance on the application of States’ human rights obligations in
the fight against extreme poverty.
“Now I urge States to use these Principles to strengthen their efforts to combat poverty, and civil society
organisations to disseminate them and monitor their implementation widely,” the Special Rapporteur stressed. “The
Guiding Principles should assist in empowering people living in poverty to claim their rights, and ensuring that
anti-poverty programmes reach those hardest to reach: the poorest of the poor.”
“Today marks a point in the international community’s position towards national and international efforts to eradicate
extreme poverty,” Ms. Sepúlveda said, noting that the Guiding Principles highlight specific rights whose enjoyment by
persons living in poverty is particularly limited and obstructed, and in relation to which State policies are often
inadequate or counterproductive.
“The adoption of these much needed principles has indeed taken a long time, but it ends up being very opportune. These
Principles could play a key role protecting and empowering those who are hit hardest by the global economic crisis.”
The Human Rights Council will now forward the Guiding Principles to the UN General Assembly.
(*) Check the Guiding Principles: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session21/A-HRC-21-50_en.pdf
ENDS