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The Guardian reports on findings by the High Pay Commission, which suggests that current trends unaltered, the gap between the very rich and the poor could reach levels last seen under the reign of Queen Victoria by 2030.

A recurring human rights violation, this time in Brazil: preparing for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, Brazil may be violating human rights, particularly the right to housing following evictions of those living in areas selected for construction, says the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik. “I am particularly worried about what seems to be a pattern that’s lacking transparency, consultation, dialogue, fair negotiation, and participation of the affected communities in processes concerning evictions undertaken or planned in connection with the World Cup and Olympics,” Rolnick said in an interview with Bloomberg.

A successful campaign to provide health care as a human right in Vermont, despite the fact that the United States have no intention of ratifying the Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: the Vermont Worker’s Center has accomplished the task of advocating for health care based on international obligations and its guiding principles, including: universality, equity, accountability, transparency and participation.

For what they are worth – and they are worth a lot less than one is made to believe  – diamonds can have a bloody history. As a reminder some recent reports by Human Rights Watch on the conflict related origins of some of the gems as well as the child and slave labour that often is part of the chain of production of the precious commodity.

As always, The Atlantic piece by Edward Jay Epstein on “Have you ever tried to sell a Diamond?,” here as a reminder on the actual value of diamonds and the power of marketing.

An important Op-Ed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus in the NYTimes on sticking to the principles of the brilliant idea to provide microfinance to those in need of (economic) empowerment and criticizing those who loose sight of the intentions and focus on the potential profits.

New Year. Old challenges. The Guardian discusses the perpetually important issue that while private charity and welfare may be a necessary societal cause it does not let the public off the hook of responsibility.

The NYTimes reports that India is discussing the constitutional recognition of the right to food. While obviously part of a political debate, which also eyes likely effects in upcoming elections, the essential question is: should there be a right, an entitlement to have access to basic food stuffs?

On July 28 2010 the United Nations’ General Assembly declared access to clean water a human right. So far, access to water has been interpreted as part of the right to food as enshrined in Article 11 of the Covenant on Economic & Social Rights, which states inter alia:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.

The Committee charged with monitoring the implementation of the Covenant and its interpretation, in 2002 explained in great detail why water is an essential part of food, declaring:

The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights.

The move by the General Assembly adds to this the weight of a resolution, recognizing the importance of access to clean water on a human rights based approach.

The BBC relays a study reported by the British Medical Journal suggesting that health related inequality is currently greater than it was during the Great Depression in the 1920ies.

Big report in the NYTimes on universal coverage of health care “in dirt-poor country,” Rwanda.

As part of its Demand Dignity Campaign, amnesty international, in its Report From Promises to Delivery demands that the fight against poverty – the spear head of the Millennium Development Campaign – be based on human rights.

The Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Magdalena Sepulveda in her Report to the Human Rights Council warns that the changing of societal patterns and family living arrangements means that older persons are at an increased risk of extreme poverty.

“Societies are abandoning traditional care practices,” the Special Rapporteur warns and calls on systemic measures such as realization of the right to social protection through universal pensions.

There are apparently 105.000 homeless people in Australia, half of them are estimated to be below 25 years of age. Sarah Davies of the Melbourne Community Foundation discusses in The Age how, despite being a complex issue, the right to housing can be realized.

The Guardian reports about a Report by the National Equality Panel. It highlights income disparities: “richest 10% is more than 100 times better off than the poorest 10%”. An unemployed father of three observes:

“If you don’t feel secure, you are always on tenterhooks, you snap at the children. It is a mental strain. Sometimes you feel you just want to roll over and give up. Your resilience is worn away, there is nothing left to rely on.”

Data of the report can be found here.

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, the Wall Street Journal observes: “while natural calamities do not discriminate between rich countries and poor ones, their effects almost invariably do (…) The difference is a function of a wealth-generating and law-abiding society that can afford, among other things, the expense of proper building codes.”

In an Op-Ed in the Observer, singer Régine Chassagne states:

“Many Haitians expect to be let down. History shows they are right to feel that way. Haitians know that they have been wronged many, many times. What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the west’s centuries of disregard.”

NYTimes columnist Judith Warner discusses the situation of persons with varying forms of depression in the United States of America. As a new  study finds that those who do get treaty do not get treated properly and many others receive no treatment at all, Warner holds: “This is the big picture of mental health care in America: not perfectly healthy people popping pills for no reason, but people with real illnesses lacking access to care; facing barriers like ignorance, stigma and high prices; or finding care that is ineffective.”

The effect of social barriers, such as stigma and ignorance cannot be overestimated. Equally, access to affordable quality health care – a human right – is fraught for many around the globe.

Happy New Year! The European Union is dedicating 2010 to the fight against poverty and social exclusion, see EU framework on poverty + social exclusion.

It seems like yesterday that the then-Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, raged against the latest increase of the world’s people who go hungry jumping to 820 million. With the crisis deepening daily, the FAO’s announcement of one billion people in the world going hungry is sidelined as a statistical fact in an environment that fails to acknowledge the hardest hit on its door step: compare Barbara Ehrenreich’s coverage of those “too poor to make the news.”

“The fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger,” Article 11 of the Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights has been endorsed by no less than 160 countries world wide.

Sad – but not surprising – the poverty numbers in Austria, as in many other countries, are climbing. The already staggering numbers of one million – out of eight – in or on the margins of poverty have been increased significantly: according to Martin Schenk of the Armutskonferenz, the amount of people living in poverty will rise by at least 100.000 by the end of the year.

Construction work and the right to housing collide frequently. A particular concern are building projects, which destroy the already appalling “living” conditions of homeless people who try to get by in make-shift “homes”. Often migrants from rural areas, they get by in little “huts”. One such example was featured in the IHT, which reported on a Chinese blogger, Zhang Shihe, who covers the plight of the homeless South of Tiananmen Square.

Students at Harvard’s Medical School are challenging the ties between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry, or more specifically the influence that such ties have on the teaching of some professors at HMS, reports the IHT.

Seems like a good poignant time to revisit the Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines as spelled out by outgoing Special Rapporteur on the (human) right to health, Paul Hunt.

The Preamble highlights that “Almost 2 billion people lack access to essential medicines; improving access to existing medicines could save 10 million lives each year, 4 million of them in Africa and South-East Asia.” Acknowledging that it is the States who bear the primary responsibility to ensure access to the highest attainable standard of health – and therewith medicines – the Guidelines stress that “Pharmaceutical companies, including innovator, generic and biotechnology companies, have human rights responsibilities in relation to access to medicines.”

FAIR – Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting – takes a critical look at the discussion of “poverty” as the economic crisis widens and deepens. Not entirely surprisingly there are some traps the mass-media are falling into. The stereotypes of the “good times” are maintained as the focus is not on low-income poor who have been stuck on the margines of society for years and are hit hardest by the economic down-turn but rather on the newly poor who by and large have a middle-class background. 

Speaking of poverty, Peter Singer observes “There is a psychological difficulty in really thinking seriously about large-scale poverty when it happens far away from you and you don’t know the people involved,” in a discussion of his new book – The Life You can Save: Ending World Poverty Now.

The economic crisis is starting to show its ugly face pretty much everywhere. One indicator reported by the WP: the cases of child neglect in the District of Columbia area have gone up significantly. In some cases as much as 150% compared to autumn 2007.

The NYTimes features a portrait of Alberto Cairo, an Italian physiotherapist who has run the Red Cross’ orthopedic rehabilitation center in Kabul since 1990. The Center has provided protheses to nearly 90.000 people who have mainly been disabled due to injuries sustained from the decades of warfare, which have also left behind some 10 milion mines. “Mr. Cairo, slim, affable and an energetic enthusiast of tennis, rarely shows the edginess that wears away at the most courtly of foreigners under stress in foreign lands. But a rare impatience shows when the people who know what he has accomplished suggest that he has become a legend here. Rather, Mr. Cairo says it is he, more than his Afghan patients, who has been the greatest beneficiary of his years in Kabul,” reports the Times.

As many flock to celebrate Christmas, it is obvious that an increasing number of people cannot put food on the table, let alone a festive dinner. Ireland, which knows deep-seated poverty too well is tackling one side of the increasing crisis: begging. The WP reports that “aggressive” begging can now be fined with € 700. Civil society representatives are squarely criticising the questionable attempt to curb begging without addressing the root causes.

Nicholas Kristof makes a strong case for the outdated nature of an administrative branch devoted to agriculture as opposed to food.

In a rare interview, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei tells the LATimes he is “talking more and more about poverty, HIV-/AIDS” because the “nuclear issue is the tip of the iceberg” and world leaders need to address “broader unease about security, poverty and perceived injustice.”

Today, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights by consenus, paving the way for its adoption on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th next month. The Optional Protocol, once in force, will allow individual complaints on violations of economic, social & cultural rights much in the way of the already well established Optional Protocol on Civil & Political Rights.

In a way, the adoption is yet another step toward closing the door on the Cold War. After all, the division between civil & political rights and economic, social and cultural rights respectively is largely due to the political fractions that emerged after the end of National Socialism and the Second World War, when efforts to reach agreement on a human rights treaty failed and brought about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

Yesterday a High-level Event was held at the UN General Assembly to assess the Millennium Development Goals. A number of people spoke, among them Bill Gates. 

The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown stated: “I believe our greatest enemy is not war or inequality or any single ideology or a financial crisis; it is too much indifference. Indifference in the face of soul  destroying poverty. Indifference in the face of catastrophic threats to our planet. A casual  uncaring corrosive pass by on the other side, walk by indifference as Elie Wiesel said “to be indifferent to suffering makes the human being inhuman”.

UNESCO has themed the International Day of Literacy: “Literacy is the best remedy.” 
The Austrian UNESCO Commission highlights that some 300.000 persons are illiterate in Austria. Note that it is not just children who cannot read and/or write but also a significant number of adults who were denied their full right to education in the 50ies and 60ies. 

Until recently, Austria did not agree to professional research into the prevalance of illiteracy. The first such inquiry is to be conducted in 2009 as part of OECD’s Programm for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.

Having to pull myself out of the numbness that sometimes surrounds me in highlighting the effects of poverty on people in poor countries, it is always particularly disturbing to witness the effects of poverty in those parts of the world where one would assume there is plenty for all: the Guardian reports on poverty as the primary cause for child mortality in the United Kingdom. 

In addition to the growing gap between rich and poor the report of British network End Child Poverty points out that poor families are at a factor 10 more likely to loose their child due to suddent infant death than better-off families. It also highlights a fact usually a standard in reports from developing countries: the underweight of children born into poor families.

The right to work is a recognized human right – Article 6 of the Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights. What is more, there are certain basic standards that have to be met, including adequate remuneration, i.e. fair payment that allows one a decent living. Apparently the EURO 2008^TM changes everything, including the way we look at the right to work.

While the organizers are said to be garnering some € 1,3 Billion, “volunteers” are taking care of various aspects of the Championships, without pay, benefits or social security coverage. Well, they receive a specially designed T-Shirt plus matching garb but that can barely camouflage the fact that unpaid work for a multi-million-Euro entity is being “sold” as a sign of highly troublesome style.