Author(s): Brooks T
Abstract: Global poverty refuses to decline, as global inequality continues to increase, more than doubling since 1960. ... Perhaps affluent states are primarily responsible for global poverty through the global institutional order they impose on poor states after all. ... Pogge says "we, the affluent countries and their citizens, continue to impose a global economic order under which millions avoidably die each year from poverty-related causes ... . We must regard our imposition of the present global order as a grave injustice ... ." Affluent states are responsible for a coercive global institutional order that engenders the foreseeable and avoidable harm of severe poverty. ... As a result, affluent states have a negative duty to assist the global poor to rectify the harm that they have caused them. ... The first reason is that Pogge mistakenly believes his argument for a negative duty to assist commits him to the view that we have an obligation to eradicate global poverty. ... If affluent states share responsibility for the harm of global poverty, then surely their duties to assist extend no further than the degree of responsibility they possess. ... The affluent states are not fully responsible for global poverty and, thus, only owe a degree of assistance equal to the harm caused.
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Dr Thom Brooks
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