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Poverty

What Systems Thinking Tells us about Climate Change, Poverty, and Human Rights

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The overlapping crises of environmental degradation, global poverty, and human rights violations form a tangled web that cannot be addressed in isolation. Climate change, often discussed in terms of carbon emissions and temperature thresholds, is in reality a complex social and ecological phenomenon, rooted in patterns of consumption, political inertia, and economic inequality. Poverty, meanwhile, is not simply the absence of wealth, but the product of systemic structures that deprive millions of people of access to clean water, breathable air, and basic health. Human rights—those supposedly universal guarantees of dignity and well-being—are being steadily eroded by the accelerating collapse of environmental systems. Understanding and addressing these interconnected crises requires a shift in perspective: from fragmented problem-solving to integrated systems thinking. Such an approach reveals how seemingly unrelated issues reinforce one another across scales and sectors, and why effective solutions must transcend traditional policy silos. The Ecology of Collapse: Pollution and Environmental Breakdown Environmental pollution has become one of the most urgent and complex threats to planetary health. Air, water, and soil systems have been degraded on a scale unprecedented in human history. Industrial emissions, transport-related pollutants, agricultural runoff, and the improper handling of waste—both chemical and organic—are causing widespread damage to ecosystems and human populations alike. Air pollution, in particular, stands out as both a global and deeply localized crisis. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds contribute to cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses and are linked to over 7 million premature deaths annually. In many […]

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Social Systems of Perennial Human Rights Abuses

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Despite historical evidence—and inspired by the values embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)—some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and certain United Nations agencies have set the “eradication of poverty” as an achievable goal. Nearly three-quarters of a century after the world community adopted the UDHR, not only has poverty not been eradicated, but more people have been pushed deeper into conditions below the poverty line. Today, nearly a billion people live in destitution. This category refers to the deplorable conditions in which human beings live every day without secure access to food, water, and shelter. These are individuals who cannot work and depend on aid for survival—the growing population of unhoused, unfed, and often forgotten human beings. This condition represents a state even worse than poverty—where people have jobs and work daily, yet still fail to secure basic needs for themselves and those under their care. These are the working poor. Often, those struggling with poverty are only a month away from falling into full destitution. As inhumane as poverty and destitution are, they are even worse when specific social groups are permanently locked into these conditions due to formal and informal, determinant and contributory systems in their societies. Worse still is when these conditions exist in so-called democratic societies, where doctrines of sovereignty and the rule of law become state instruments to preserve the very systems that create such atrocities. For instance, in the United States—ostensibly the most affluent and powerful nation-state in the world, the leader of […]

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Tariffs and Human Rights

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Generally, nowadays, a tariff is a tax imposed by a government on goods and services imported from other countries. Its primary purpose is to raise the cost of foreign products, making them less competitive compared to locally produced goods. Tariffs are a fundamental instrument in international trade policy and have been used historically both to protect domestic industries and as a political weapon. Originally, the word tariff has an intriguing linguistic lineage—one that bridged the Islamic East with the Christian West. In the context of the modern West, tariff is connected to the Italian word tariffa, meaning “list of prices or taxes.” However, the word originates from the Arabic word ta`ārīf (تعاريف), meaning “notifications” or “definitions” — which itself referred to a list of customs duties. This etymology reflects the deep historical links between trade and taxation in the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia regions, where merchants and empires developed early customs systems to regulate the flow of goods. Initially, tariffs were institutionalized in the emerging Islamic civilization. But one of the earliest formal systems of trade duties can be traced back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad, who established rules to regulate commerce fairly in accordance with Islamic principles of justice and equity. Under Islamic governance, the caliphate, tariffs applied to state revenues above and beyond the religiously mandated taxes, called zaka and sadaka. These extra, non-religious taxes, ta`rifa, were also known as `ushr (a 10% tax on certain imports for non-Muslims) and khums (a tax of one-fifth on […]

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Globalism and Human Rights

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Globalization is the term used to describe the liberalization and interdependence between the world’s economies, cultures, and populations (Peterson Institute for International Economics). Globalization encompasses the growing cross-border trade of goods and services, foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI), technology, and information between countries. Think of it as a “McDonaldization” of not just capital, labor, and commodities but of lifestyles, ideas, preferences, food, culture, and values–the interaction amongst people within states plays a vital role in transforming not just political institutions, but cultural standards (norms), and social connections (Swathi Hosamani and Shravani Hosamani 4). Furthermore, globalization brings about economic growth, technological progress, and infrastructure development and has the promise to bring lower-developed countries into the 21st century; however, simultaneously, many difficulties still arise at the intersection of economic progress and safeguarding human rights (Swathi et al. 7). First, what does it mean to safeguard human rights? “Human rights”, a term coined in the 20th century, nevertheless present since the beginning of civilization, are fundamental basic rights. Human Rights are natural or inherent within all of us by virtue of our existence. To safeguard human rights means to uphold the inherent worth and respect of every individual in the collective and in cultivating a cohesive society, protect against any attempt of infringement of one’s dignity, as a collective cannot triumph if even the inherent rights of one do not remain inviolable (Swathi et al. 7). Economic globalization does not just have significant potential to impact human rights; it […]

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Poverty Law and Equality Rights: Preliminary Reflections

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by James C. Hathaway, University of Michigan Law School Abstract The traditional governmental response to the phenomenon of poverty has been the enactment of legislation to permit or effect the transfer of some measure of economic resources to the poor. From feudal times to the present, governments of our political tradition have consistently embraced an economic definition of poverty: the poor are identified by financial criteria and are assisted by financial means. The legislative evolution in regard to poverty, based on this underlying economic premise, has achieved only superficial advances. First, twentieth century legislation incorporates a more humane standard of minimum acceptable resource allotments. Second, the modern social welfare system represents a somewhat more comprehensive and less stigmatizing legislative bandage than were such earlier legal vehicles as the regulation of begging, institutionalized almsgiving and workhouses. Recommended Citation Hathaway, James C. “Poverty Law and Equality Rights: Preliminary Reflections.” Journal of Law and Social Policy 1 (1985): 1-16. (Work published when author not on Michigan Law faculty.) Download: UM Repository

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