International Poverty Law An Emerging Discourse

This book seeks to advance the emerging field of international poverty law. While law and development discourse has dealt with international poverty, advocates of poverty reduction customarily operate within a nation-state context. The contributors to this volume, while largely, although not exclusively, relying on human rights discourse and United Nations, International Labour Organization and World Trade Organization initiatives as their primary legal sources, begin to position international poverty law as a legitimate field for transnational, multidisciplinary legal research and dialogue. While critiquing both legal theory and current policy, they nevertheless open up a constructive prospect of specific arenas in which the development of international poverty law can contribute to addressing poverty reduction.While law and development discourse has dealt with international poverty, advocates of poverty reduction usually operate within a nation-state context. This book provides a new framework for the future theoretical development of international poverty law. It also explores specific human rights initiatives that address particular aspects of poverty, including human rights conventions, measures to counter the tendency of intellectual property law to undermine food security, the right to food as framed in UN development documents, and the startlingly important development in South Africa of an alternative vision of constitutional law. The contributors position international poverty law as a legitimate field for multidisciplinary research and dialogue, and open up new arenas for international poverty law to contribute to addressing poverty reduction.