Human Rights Facts (49): Poverty Trap

(source)
A poverty trap occurs when poverty has effects which act as causes of poverty, creating a vicious circle in which poverty engenders more poverty, a circle of cumulative causation leading to a downward spiral of ever more extreme poverty.
Poverty traps or poverty circles can be of different kinds: individual, social, national, international…
1. Individual poverty traps
A [...]

Human Rights Quote (78): Honor Killings

The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions. Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights activist
An honor killing is a murder, carried out by a family to punish a female family member who has supposedly brought dishonor on the family. The acts which are the cause of [...]

Human Rights Facts (48): Resource Curse

(source: http://solitaireinternational.wordpress.com/2007/05/)
Why do countries with lots of natural resources tend to do worse than countries with less resource wealth, both in terms of economic growth and in political, social and human rights terms? We see that countries which own lots of natural resources such as diamonds, oil or other valuables that are found in the [...]

Human Rights Facts (42): Discrimination

I’ve written before on discrimination, especially gender discrimination (also here) and discrimination based on sexual orientation. This post tackles the subject more generally.
Discrimination, in its non-political and non-legal sense, simply means the recognition of differences. In the political and legal sense, it means unjustifiable differences in treatment between groups of people, most often the unjustifiable [...]

Plato, Democracy, and “Human Rights” (3): Violence

(please read part 1 and part 2 first)
The philosophers are the only ones who know the value and superiority of theoretical life. The rest will only appreciate their efforts once they are successful. This is an effort on the part of Plato to justify the use of force. Ordinary people will not strive autonomously or [...]

Human Rights Quote (65): Interdependence of Human Rights

“Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.” Lyndon B. Johnson

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, [...]

Human Rights Facts (38): Millennium Development Goals

I’ve mentioned the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before. This post gives some more data.
The United Nations agreed the 8 MDGs in 2000, to be reached in 2015. Now, half-way to that deadline, there is progress, but not all regions in the world are doing equally well. However, even in the poorest region - sub-Saharan Africa [...]

Human Rights Facts (30): Human Development Index

I’ve written about the Human Development Index before on this blog, but only casually. This post is meant to give a more in-depth explanation of the concept.
The word “development” as it is used in terms such as “the developed and developing (or underdeveloped) world”, “international development aid” etc. refers to an evolution or process towards [...]

Marx and Democracy

According to Marxism, democracy suffers from a contradiction between political equality on the one hand (equal votes but also equal rights, equality before the law etc. - see here and here) and economic or material equality on the other hand. The absence of the latter prevents the full realization of political and even judicial equality [...]

Human Rights Cartoon (80): Child Labor

Three cartoons about child labor:

(copyright Fredrikke Palmer & unknown & Robert Minor respectively)
Child labor not only keeps children from attending school. It often harms them physically and mentally. It is therefore a double problem from the point of view of the human rights of children.

It denies them the education that they need for the exercise [...]