Institutional Anti-poverty Rights

• In Event: The Poor's Privilege

Abstract

Alejandra Mancilla (2015) has recently resuscitated the right of necessity to justify takings that would otherwise be considered property rights violations in cases where such takings help deprived individuals to meet their basic needs. Mancilla’s work has focused primarily on the case of individuals and what exemptions they have from otherwise widely held moral prohibitions. I continue in this line of thinking but examine the case of states. When should states be exempt from what is otherwise expected of them? Or, putting the same question differently, when should states be granted special exemptions or privileges that are not otherwise held by states?

International practice and international political theory often recognizes a range of practices in which states are treated differently (or are argued to be deserving of differential treat based on their poverty status including: the rates at which states may borrow from international financials institutions; exemptions from tariffs and other trade barriers; exemption from respecting intellectual property rights in developing generic medicines; and exemption from standard obligations regarding climate change mitigation.

I argue for four desiderata that should jointly determine whether a state should be granted special treatment in international relations. First, the state must contain many badly off people. Second, the treatment must reasonably be expected to meet the needs of badly off people. Third, the treatment must be consistent with sustainable improvements in institutional quality. Fourth, the granting of the treatment must be consistent with other similarly situated states receiving the same treatment.

Author

• Scott Leigh Wisor, Minerva Schools at KGI