- Respecting and fulfilling human rights (HR) has a cost indeed –maybe even in terms of economic growth foregone. But solidarity, fairness and justice are also values that count –perhaps more than growth– when wealth is relentlessly concentrating in fewer and fewer hands: Disparities in global income are simply worsening.
- As part of these inequalities, in the 21st century, it is a fact that, in rich countries, it has become cheaper to buy an extra year of life; buying an extra year of life in poor countries has also become somewhat cheaper: But by far and increasingly more unaffordable.
- The inequalities we refer to arise from the rich being made better-off at a faster pace than the poor. (Unbelievably, many of the rich see this as “not-a-bad-thing” since this windfall bonanza comes really “at no-one’s expense…” (??) Worldwide, we are told that the “average-global-citizen” (does such an animal exist?) has become wealthier –but this is of little comfort for the 2 ½-3 billion poor people living in developing countries.
- In 2001, more than half the low income countries (population 800 million) had per capita income growths of less than 2%; nearly one third of them (225 million) had negative growths. This, at a time when OECD countries subsidized their agriculture at a level of U$850 million a day, or U$360 billion in 2003 alone. (This equals six times their overseas development assistance and is costing the world’s poor countries about U$24 billion a year in lost export income…not to talk about the expenses of U$200 billion in Iraq).
- Inequalities are of such a magnitude that reallocating a relatively small part of the income of the 10% richest group (e.g., through progressive taxation, property taxes, luxury goods taxation, a Tobin-type tax, land reform) can potentially make a big dent in the income of the poorest 20%.
If this is not a human (people’s) rights issue, I would not know what is….
So, what am I (you) to do as a HR activist?
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City