Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer, ‘Poverty, Obligations, and the International Economic Legal System: What are our duties to the global poor’ in Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer (ed.), Poverty and the International Economic Legal System: Duties to the World’s Poor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) pp. 3-15.
Schefer – Poverty and the International Economic Legal System
Background
The relationship between the international economic law system and states’ obligations to reduce poverty was the subject of a conference held at the University of Basel in October 2011. The result of the conference was the book edited by Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer, Poverty and the International Economic Legal System which brings together a number of contributions by prominent academics and practitioners across a variety of fields connected to the international economic law system from trade, investment and finance. The volume also includes notable contributions by Thomas Cottier, Samantha Besson and Mark Pieth who are also included in this anthology.
Summary
The extract is the opening chapter of the book Poverty and the International Economic Legal System edited by Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer. The chapter serves as an introduction to the contributions in the rest of the book and outlines the relatively recent emergence of poverty on the international legal landscape at the end of the twentieth century. Schefer discusses the importance of the establishment of human rights for poverty alleviation as well as the need to recognise the negative effects of relative poverty on individuals in wealthier countries. Finally Schefer turns to the laws of the legal economic system and proposes a close examination of such individual laws and how they can be seen in tackling poverty .