This timely and insightful book brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to evaluate the role of human rights in tackling the global challenges of poverty and economic inequality. Reflecting on the concrete experiences of particular countries in tackling poverty, it appraises the international success of human rights-based approaches. Drawing on insights from philosophy, history, economics and politics, contributors consider a range of questions concerning the nature of human rights and their possible relationship to poverty, inequality and development. Chapters interrogate human rights-based approaches and question whether the normative human rights framework provides a sound foundation for addressing global poverty and equitable distribution of resources. Probing practical questions concerning the extent to which international human rights institutions have been effective in combating poverty, this thought-provoking book considers possible strategies in response to the challenges that lie ahead. Offering robust and provocative guidelines for the future of human rights and development, this unique book will be indispensable for academics and researchers investigating the intersection of human rights and poverty, particularly those interested in human rights-based approaches to tackling inequality. Its practical insights will also benefit policy makers in need of novel methodologies for promoting equality.

This interdisciplinary collection examines the significance of constitutions in setting the terms and conditions upon which market economies operate. With some important exceptions, most notably from the tradition of Latin American constitutionalism, scholarship on constitutional law has paid negligible attention to questions of how constitutions relate to economic phenomena. A considerable body of literature has debated the due limits of the exercise of executive and legislative power, and discussions about legitimacy, democracy, and the adjudication of rights (civil and political, and socioeconomic) abound, yet scant attention has been paid by constitutional lawyers to the ways in which constitutions may protect and empower economic actors, and to how constitutions might influence the regulation and governance of specific markets. The contributors to this collection mobilize insights from other disciplines - including economic theory, history, and sociology - and consider the relationship between constitutional frameworks and bodies of law - including property law, criminal law, tax law, financial regulation, and human rights law - to advance understanding of how constitutions relate to markets and to the political economy. This book's analysis of the role constitutions play in shaping markets will appeal to scholars and students in law, economics, history, politics, and sociology.

This book is an inquiry into the role of law in the contemporary political economy of hunger. In the work of many international institutions, governments, and NGOs, law is represented as a solution to the persistence of hunger. This presentation is evident in the efforts to realize a human right to adequate food, as well as in the positioning of law, in the form of regulation, as a tool to protect society from 'unruly' markets. In this monograph, Anna Chadwick draws on theoretical work from a range of disciplines to challenge accounts that portray law's role in the context of hunger as exclusively remedial. The book takes as its starting point claims that financial traders 'caused' the 2007-8 global food crisis by speculating in financial instruments linked to the prices of staple grains. The introduction of new regulations to curb the 'excesses' of the financial sector in order to protect the food insecure reinforces the dominant perception that law can solve the problem. Chadwick investigates a number of different legal regimes spanning public international law, international economic law, transnational governance, private law, and human rights law to gather evidence for a counterclaim: law is part of the problem. The character of the contemporary global food system-a food system that is being progressively 'financialized'-owes everything to law. If world hunger is to be eradicated, Chadwick argues, then greater attention needs to be paid to how different legal regimes operate to consistently privilege the interests of the wealthy few over the needs of poor and the hungry.