Last December, Law Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the United States at the invitation of the federal government to look at whether the persistence of extreme poverty in America undermines the enjoyment of human rights by its citizens. Several CounterPunch articles have
How Effective are International Human Rights Treaties?
“The United States is alone among developed countries in insisting that while human rights are of fundamental importance, they do not include rights that guard against dying of hunger, dying from a lack of access to affordable healthcare, or growing up in a context of total deprivation.”
— Philip Alston
By Joan Roelofs
