Today, poverty prevails as the gravest human rights challenge in the world. Combating poverty, deprivation and exclusion is not a matter of charity, and it does not depend on how rich a country is.Today is Human Rights Day. This year's theme is "Fighting Poverty: A matter of obligation not charity".
By tackling poverty as a matter of human rights obligation, the world will have a better chance of abolishing this scourge in our lifetime... Poverty eradication is an achievable goal.
Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
There's not much I can say about this that's new or innovative. It's pretty much all right here, and will only take you a minute to read.
If you have 10 minutes to spare today, read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
If you have another 15, read the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights also has a handy fact sheet on the International Bill of Rights that these 3 documents make up. It lives here.
Human Rights have also come to play a stronger role in development thinking in recent years. The UK's Overseas Development Institute has a handy briefing paper outlining the thinking. Australia does not officially endorse the approach, and most likely won't, even with a change of government - we don't want to be obliged to actually do anything now do we?
If you still find yourself with some reading time and the inclination to continue perusing what the web has to offer on the topic of human rights and poverty, Amnesty International has a whole site devoted to the topic.
Happy Human Rights Day - and let's hope it can be a happier one for some of the millions of people living in desperate poverty; poverty we could easily end if we so chose.
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