TORTURE: ASIAN AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | OCTOBER 2013
per cent of all deaths from weather-related disasters, and 90 per cent of total economic losses are borne by developing countries. According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute for the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, 25 million more children will go hungry by 2050 as climate change leads to food shortages and higher prices for staples such as rice, wheat, maize, and soya beans. The children of 2050 will have fewer calories to eat than those of 2000, and the effect would be to wipe out decades of progress in reducing child malnutrition. The weak bargaining position of poor countries in trade negotiations is similarly true of climate change negotiations. There are grounds for both pessimism and optimism about eradicating world poverty. Pessimists argue that development economists do not agree on the best strategies for reducing global poverty, and the commitments of rich governments in recent years have fallen well short of their pro-poor rhetoric. Some economists doubt whether any actions by the rich can make a significant impact on poverty: they point out that China has done more to promote economic growth and reduce poverty than any other country in recent years, and has achieved this with little help from the rich countries. When the United Nations Organization was founded in 1945, most of the world’s people were still living under colonial rule. Since then the two most important events in world history have been the end of Western colonialism and the collapse of the Soviet model of development. The so-called neoliberal model of economic development has become hegemonic, although it is now in crisis because of its internal instability and the challenge of emerging economies, especially China. There has been progress in reducing poverty by some important measures, such as
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literacy, reduction in child mortality, and rise in life expectancy. The progress is, however, fragile. The crisis of Western capitalism is more than a short-term problem; it raises questions about long-term sustainability. The outcome of shifting patterns of economic and political power cannot be predicted. There are two particularly worrying features of the contemporary world. The first is the exclusion of the global poor from global economic decision-making. The second is the failure of the international community to take climate change seriously. The international human rights and antipoverty movements have placed world poverty on the agenda of international politics in the past 20 years with unprecedented success. Unfortunately, agendas do not feed the hungry and agendas change as the result of economic and political pressures. In 1948, the United Nations promised everyone an adequate standard of living. The promise is at best partially fulfilled. The struggle continues. The slogan for this struggle should be: be determined, but, also, be smart. Michael Freeman is a research Professor in the, Department of Government at the University of Essex, United Kingdom, where he teaches Human Rights and Political Theory. He has written over 60 papers and he also authored / edited several books, which include Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2nd ed.), 1995; Nationalism and Minorities (Belgrade: Institute of Social Sciences, co-editor), 1980; and Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (Oxford: Blackwell), 1980.
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