HRS RESOLUTION 2007/2008

HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY

FACULTY OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBO
Colombo 03, Sri Lanka.
hrslawcmb@gmail.com.

20.02.2008

Publication of the HRS Resolution, 2007/2008

We hereby declare and publish the Resolution, 2007/2008 titled “The Failure of Human Rights
Mechanism in the face of Liberal Market Economy and the Need for new Dimensions” of the
Human Rights Society of the Faculty of Law, as was passed by its Executive Committee on 19th
February 2008.

Sanjaya Wilson Swarna Mallikarachchi

President. Secretary.

Human Rights Society Resolution, 2007/2008

ISBN 978-955-9021-61-2

Copyright ©2008 Human Rights Society, Faculty of Law, University of Colombo.

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Forward

I
t’s the struggle of the people in the history and the present all around the world, their
sweat and blood and tears that have been recognized as human rights in the charters of
the universal acceptance and also in many other statutes of civilized countries. Human
rights is the story of those people who suffer each day because of many forms of violence,
pain, suffering, frustration, injustice, poverty and death. Its also the grave story of those who
were brutally killed, tortured; it’s the story of those who were buried half alive, those of our
sisters who were raped brutally by the military in front of their parents and lovers; of the
children who were left abandoned destitute because of useless wars all around the world; of
the people left alone like dust in the streets whose lives have no value for the rest of the
humanity; Its also the story of the oppressor, the exploiter, the imperialist and the capitalist;
of the disparities between the rich and the poor, the inequalities in each aspect of life- all
these cry out loud of those who were deprived of their rights and freedoms throughout the
world.

What matters is not the black letter of the law, but what actually people experience and if the
law doesn’t provide for the needs, aspirations, justice and equality of the people the law
either is to be interpreted to mean them or the law should be reformed fundamentally, and it
should be practically guaranteed and implemented. The law does not come from the sky; it
comes and must come from the earth.

If the law reformers don’t look around the world in its practicality, in the light of
multidimensional perspectives, through various disciplines of social studies including
sociology, history, politics, economics, and ethics it’s obvious that those law reforms would
never adequately respond to the pressing problems of the humanity. Law is never something
frozen at a far corner of the society but it’s of the pulse of the people, of their sweat, blood,
tears and happiness. Thus the law is never without sensitivity, empathy, but it’s the very
emblem of humanity, its life, its emotions and feelings. The law of Human rights has no

exception, and it’s the very essence of it all. The mission of the Human Rights Society is thus
founded on such vision and has embarked upon its way to bring forward some of the most
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important issues in the present world as per Human Rights. We are at a crucial juncture of
the human history, as we, the HRS understand, and its time we probe into different
dimensions and find multidimensional alternatives to the present rotten system to erase the
human travails everywhere. Development, wellbeing of all, equality, justice and freedom of
all should be practically guaranteed and a culture of love and wisdom should be brought in,
for which full-scale discourses on the issue of rights of all people should be done all around.

our intention to open it for criticism, discussion, dialogue, argument and discourse and never
Thus, we, The Human Rights Society hereby establish its Resolution, 2007/2008. It’s for
debates. It is our desire to pinpoint some of the major issues in the sphere of human rights
that are, as we think, not adequately addressed by the elite and the practitioners in our
Country.

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HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY

FACULTY OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBO
Colombo 03, Sri Lanka.
hrslawcmb@gmail.com.

HRS RESOLUTION 2007/2008

The Failure of Human Rights Mechanism in the face of Liberal Market Economy and the
Need for new Dimensions.

The Human Rights Society observes that all around the world the discourse on the theory of
human rights is often directed only at the protection of civil and political rights. By contrast
Economic, social and cultural rights are presented as objectives of progressive realization or as
simple aspirations for the future. This Resolution of our Society on the global Human Rights
Mechanism with its substantive and procedural aspects, we thought, should focus everybody’s
attention to some of the salient aspects of the rights and freedoms that are basically ignored, not
recognized or acted upon by the states, lawyers and activists.

Our position as the Human Rights Society on this subject is basically based on the inevitable inter-
relationship and interdependency existing between both groups of rights, which would guarantee
that none of the said groups may have precedence over another. Thus, they must be viewed as an
insurmountable whole.

The Universal Declaration, in its article 22, clearly establishes that “everyone, as a member of
society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and
international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of
the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of
his personality”.

The International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, on its part, establishes in its
preamble that “the standard of a free human being, liberated from fear and poverty cannot be

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achieved unless conditions shall be created that allow everyone to enjoy his economic, social and
cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights”.

We live in a world of enormous economic and social contrasts. The combined wealth of the top
300 people now exceeds the total annual income of the world's one billion poorest. The richest
one-fifth own 85% of the world's wealth, while the poorest one-fifth control less than 2%.

The scale and nature of economic activities at the dawn of the 21st century create wealth
unimagined by previous generations. Developments in telecommunications and digital technology
mean that information and money can cross the globe with ease. However, half the world's
population have never used a telephone, and 840 million are illiterate - two thirds of them women.

Although the potential exists to create riches and distribute them around the world, chronic mass
unemployment affects more than 820 million workers. Production and trade is dominated by giant
transnational corporations like Exxon, Unilever, Shell and Microsoft. Assisted by their 'home'
governments and states, and by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, they
strive to impose their monopoly across the world in the name of 'free trade' and globalization.
Billions of dollars are spent on armaments each year, but resources cannot be found to eradicate
poverty and diseases such as malaria. Throughout the developing countries one and a half billion
people have no safe water supply, two and a half billion lack sanitation and hundreds of millions
suffer from chronic malnutrition, while their governments are up to their necks in debt to Western
banks.

In the United States, resources can be found to explore space and even to militarize it. Yet at the
same time, the stability of the life support system of our planet is under threat due to ozone
depletion, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, deforestation, toxic wastes and the extinction of
species.

After a century of unprecedented social, national and international conflict, war still blights one
part of the world after another. Aided by Britain and other NATO powers, the United States acts as
policeman, judge, jury and executioner on behalf of the 'international community'. Countries that
depart from the American line like Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Sudan are invaded or bombed with

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no regard for human rights or international law. The division of the world by the major imperialist
trading blocs of North America, the European

Union and Japan is increasing the danger of military conflict. The Cold War may be over, but the
risk of nuclear annihilation still exists.

We believe this crisis which grips the world is endemic to capitalism in its highest and most
moribund stage, imperialism. Today poverty, unemployment, inequality of opportunities, wage
exploitation are still part and parcel of all around the world and, the so called developed countries
have no exception. In Britain, an industrialized, wealthy, imperialist state, the richest tenth of the
population own half of Britain's wealth, while the poorest 50% own just 6% of it. Governments
come and go, but the major economic decisions continue to be made in the boardrooms of the big
financial institutions and monopoly corporations. At the stroke of a computer key, huge sums of
money are moved out of Britain and around the world. Factories are shut down while investment is
directed overseas, where wages are often lower and conditions worse. The Welfare State is put in
jeopardy and hard-won gains are sacrificed, so that companies can remain profitable' in the global
market place'.

We have to ask some basic questions. Were the poor third world countries the same some
hundreds of years back in the history? How was the system of dependency brought into those
lands? While it should be accepted that human beings in total are equally entitled to benefits,
wealth and resources of this earth, why has the unequal distribution of wealth caused the
concentration of the wealth among a very few of the rich in the world? So is this the equality the
world was aspiring to achieve more than 50 years ago when the Human Rights charters were
adopted by the United Nations? What is the reason for the relative poverty existing in the so-called
developed countries? Why do the liberal thinkers establish the Socio–economic and cultural rights
as mere ‘ soft law’, just only being some rights to be realized in an uncertain future time? Is it
because this very system of global market economy and liberal political system never pave the way
for the equal distribution of wealth and the realization of those rights all around the globe? While
the needs of all the people are the same why have they been made dependant upon one’s income
while the governments have been unable to provide for all the people the right to employment and

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fare wages? It is clear that there’s not even the moral equality in this process. Have the
governments affirmed or made systematic preparations for the people to climb up in the social
ladder giving way to social mobility?

Today no liberal capitalist country has been able to reduce world poverty, unequal distribution of
wealth which is the heritage of the whole mankind, the ever- widening gap between the rich and
the poor, unemployment and infringement of the social, economic and cultural rights of the people.
Statistics and facts from all around the world testify to this fact:

In 2001- 2 the poorest 50 percent of the population in Britain owned only1 percent of the wealth,
while the richest 5 per cent owned 57 per cent. One tenth of the population possessed nearly three
quarters of the nation’s wealth. Twelve and a half million people were living in poverty (below
60% of average income) –22 percent of the population. Nearly a third (30 % per cent) of all
children were living in poverty. And there were more children living in poverty than in any other
European country, according to Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency.

As well, income in Britain is also unequally distributed, with the richest fifth of income earners
getting about 42 per cent of all income in 2001-2 more than twice their ‘fair share’ if income were
equally distributed, and more than the bottom three-fifths of income earners got between them.
The poorest fifth got only about 8 per cent, just two-fifths of their ‘fair share’. Most of the rich live
on unearned income from investments rather than from employment.

§ The world’s richest 1 percent of people receive as much income as the poorest 57%.

§ Throughout the world around 1.2 billion people are living on a dollar a day or less.

§ Eight hundred and twenty-eight million people are moderately or severely malnourished.

§ One-fifth of the world’s population are not expected to live beyond the age of 40.

§ Nearly 1 billion people in the world are illiterate

§ Easily preventable diseases, like pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles, kill nearly
eleven million children under the age of 5 each year – 30,000 every day.

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§ About 1.3 billion people lack safe water.

This is the naked ‘inconvenient truth’ of this liberal capitalist socio-political and economic system
and the situation in Sri Lanka except for the excuses for being still a third world country, according
to western economic analysis, is not a difference:

The UNDP’s latest assessment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) puts Sri Lanka
among countries with the highest inequality in the Asian region. Sri Lanka ranks 4th among Asian
countries showing high inequality, based on the Gini-index from 1990s to 2000s. The report also
notes that the number of people in Sri Lanka living on US$ 1 per day increased from 3.8% of the
population in 1990, to 5.6% by 2002. The share of national income available to the poor also
reduced while the rich got richer. The share of the poorest 20% in national income shrank from 9%
in 1990 to 7% in 2002. Nearly 30% of Sri Lankan children, in the age group of 3 months to 5
years, were underweight according to 2000 data. Meanwhile data from 2001 to 2003 show that on
average, 22% of the entire population was undernourished.

Sri Lanka does not have an equal distribution of wealth between the rich and the poor. The Richest
obtain 42.8% of the total income, while the poor earns 8.0%. 45.4% of the population are living on
less than $2 dollars a day and 25% of the country is considered impoverished. The problem is that
the rich have all the wealth, which is a select few, while the majority of the country lives poor.

“Poverty means going short materially, socially and emotionally. It means spending less on food,
on heating, and clothing than someone on an average income. But it is not what is spent that
matters, but what isn’t. Poverty means staying at home, often being bored, not seeing friends, not
going out for a drink and not being able to take the children out for a trip or treat or a holiday. It
means coping with the stresses of managing on a very little money, often for months or even years.
It means having to withstand the onslaught of society’s pressure to consume. It impinges on
relationships with others and with yourself. Above all, poverty takes away the tools to build the
blocks for the future- ‘your life chances’. It steals away the opportunity to have a life unmarked by

sickness, a decent education, a secure home and a long retirement. It stops people being able to
take control of their lives.”
: Carey Oppenheim, Poverty: The Facts (CPAG)

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Simply poverty is gross deprivation and infringement of all rights of man. To abolish poverty and
inequality would involve a widespread redistribution of wealth and income. This would mean the
creation of improved social services, higher welfare benefits, and more and better-paid jobs, with
the introduction of higher taxes on the rich to pay for these reforms.

Equal access to justice is a right. But for majority of the people Justice is expensive that people
have to buy justice for price. The process of Human Rights enforcement in this respect is never
equal for all. The enormous expenses for the litigation process itself can not be born by an ordinary
man. Thus free access to justice must be a right if the Human Rights Mechanism is to function
equitably.

The infringement of socio-economic rights also leads to the violation of Civil and Political Rights
because they are all interconnected. The freedom of expression as a civil and political right is for
many of the people not practicably realizable. The law is not addressing these practical issues
preventing the full realization of the rights. Throughout the whole world it’s only a few rich capital
owners who reap the fruits of this freedom simply because only they can afford to maintain the
mass media including news papers, television and radio channels, thus the right of freedom of
expression being a privilege of a rich few. And these capital owners decide which way the public
opinion should go and thus even decide the Government of the people that should come to power.
The right of freedom of expression has not granted many middle class state servants or the general
working public the opportunity to express themselves. Who of those general people can afford to
publish one’s own creative writing? It should be pointed out that a root cause for many of the
terrorist activities in the world lies in the fact of practical violation of the right to freedom of
expression.

Market economy:
The argument of the right to free competition within this economic system is only just favoring for
those who posses the wealth and power and in toto these competitors are just only the major capital
owners and not any member of the middle class or the lower classes of the working people which
consist of the majority of the population. So it is plain that this right of free choice and
competition in reality is just only a right which favors the exploiting haves, and not for the
majority. Thus what all these depict is that the present system of laws is not properly addressing
the actual social realities and are like from the sky.

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The foundation of liberal market economy lies in the unlimited private property rights and free
competition. For this private property no limitation is laid as to property of the household,
recourses and other means of mass production. It is obvious that it is fundamentally the unearned
income that is amalgamated as surplus value, interest and profit among a rich few who own
multinational corporations and even are able to purchase poor nations for price. The theories on
surplus value describe how unpaid wage labor accumulates as profit making the rich shareholders
richer, while the condition of the employees is stagnating. But the system persists despite many
human rights charters, bringing its profits for a few and starvation, malnutrition, poverty,
inequality, underpayment, deprivation, underdevelopment and bare violation of their rights to the
majority of the population of the world.

Unbridled market capitalism leads to impoverishment of the majority thus depriving them of their
rights, while a few are protected of their exclusive right to free competition, individual liberty.

“The market-friendly approach to the human rights:

The construction of human rights as an instrument addressing adverse consequences of economic

globalization is not self-evident. It may not even be the dominant trend to perceive of human rights
in this way. It is perfectly possible – through prioritization and selectivity- to construct a human

rights theory that is fully compatible with or even supportive of economic globalization.
International economic actors adopt this type of human rights discourse, and thus create distrust
about the validity of human rights elsewhere.
The market-friendly approach to human rights prioritizes civil and political rights – the only real
human rights, so the argument goes, because they are only real rights. Aspects of civil and
political rights are beneficial to a market economy. The rule of law, and independent judiciary, a
government that is free from corruption, free flow of information and the opportunity of choice for
the consumer etc., are all necessity to ensure the proper functioning of the market. They are
necessary everywhere, regardless of cultural context. Women’s rights, too, are useful to the extent
that they allow women to sell their services on the same terms as men, but not if they demand state
resources or require market regulation, as in mandating parental leave or subsidized day-care

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(Rittich 2001: 103). Economic, social and cultural rights may exist, but they are long-term
aspirations, the relation of which is dependent on economic growth, which in turn will result from
the choice of the free market model. As long as the benefit of the psrocess have not trickled down
to the poor there may be a need for the state to provide social safety-nets. There is no need to think
about the human rights obligation of international economic organizations because this only
complicates the operation of such organizations that have the potential to contribute to the
realization of human rights as long as they are allowed to focus on their core business. If their
politics somehow adversely touch on human rights, it is the domestic government’s responsibility if
it has ratified the relevant human rights treaties to take action. Companies that wish to accept
social responsibility and engage in charity are to be congratulated, but no company should be
obliged to do so. Monitoring of such politics should be left to the business community itself.
Companies do not have human rights obligations. On the contrary: they are entitled to human
rights protection. In any case, human rights should not become the cornerstone of international
relations, i.e. the criterion against which every other rule is tasted. Human rights are not at the top
of the hierarchy of international rules. They are a legitimate concern to the extent that they do not
impede the proper functioning of the market.
The difficulty with the market-friendly approach to human rights is that it accepts the logic of the
exclusiveness of the market. Markets have winners and losers, and it is the ability of the winner to
reap the benefits that the market seeks to protect. Losers are not entitled to rewards; otherwise
competition does not make sense. Social justice is at the best a long-term objective that can be
delayed indefinitely as long as the creation of the growth remains the priority. Poverty needs to be
contained, but will persist, if only because there will always be people that do not avail themselves
of the opportunities the market offers. If the market is inclusive at all, it is in its encouragement to
consume.
The market-friendly approach is detrimental to the human rights project. If any prioritization
needs to take place, the only priority human rights recognize is gravity of abuse. Those who win
the market game are not usually those who suffer the gravest violations. It is the people whom the
market feels entitled to marginalize that are most vulnerable to violations. Human rights, if taken
seriously, prioritize those excluded by the market and thus condemned to living in abhorrent
conditions, to a life no marketeer would wish to contemplate. Most importantly, human rights need
to challenge the mechanisms on which exclusion is based. Inevitably, the conditions which expose
people to human rights violations change. Today one of those conditions is economic
globalization. Human rights need to respond to the change; not so much in terms of their

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substance, but in terms of the relationships they cover. The human rights regime is not old. It is
growing up. Human rights must be a flexible, living instrument that can address new threats to
human dignity, such as those flowing from economic globalization. Only then will they remain
relevant.”
: Human Rights- Social Justice in the age of the Market: Koen De Feyter

It should be point out in this context that, if it is not for a reform for state ownership of the means
of production and industrial and agricultural development with strict mechanisms to check on the
state and administrative functioning, at least a right based approach for market which is human
rights-friendly, in contrast to market-friendly approach to human rights, is mandatory to the
present world and for each country to realize the actual practice of securing all rights of the people.

Inequality in Education:

The free education system of the modern welfare state, it is said has given a great opportunity to
those at the bottom of the social stratification to move up, but is that free education equal for all, so
that it gives everybody equal opportunities to even compete?

Education is a right and does that not include the right of everybody to have higher education
opportunities at any time in his life and in any field of interest and of use to mankind? So there
could be hardly any restrictions, limitations, to the right to education and is that not bare
infringement of this right to hold competitive examinations and select a very few to enter into
universities?

For instance in Sri Lanka, due to restricted facilities University admissions have become extremely
competitive. Only 2% of the students who sit the A/L examination are admitted to the universities.
So what about the rest who are left behind, have the governments secured their interests and the
right to employment beyond any form of exploitation, deprivation, and being squandered. We,

HRS hold that free, equal, unlimited and quality education is a right of all, which the existing law
should at least be interpreted to mean and should be practically guaranteed.
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Ken Browne in An Introduction to Sociology shows the status of social class inequality in
education in England:

“Social class is one of the key factors that determine whether a child does well or badly at school.
There are major differences between the levels of achievement of the working class and middle
class and, in general, the higher the social class of the parents, the more successful a child will be
in education. The degree of social class inequality in education begins in the primary school and
becomes wider as children move through the education system, with the higher levels of the
education system dominated by middle-class students”.

“Elite Education and Elite Jobs:

A public school education remains an essential qualification for the elite jobs in Society- that small
number of jobs in the country which involve holding a great deal of power and privilege. Although
only about 7 per cent of the population have attended independent schools (and public schools are
only a proportion of these schools), many of the top positions in the Civil Service, the courts, the
Church of England, industry, banking, and commerce are held by ex-public school pupils.

In many cases, even well-qualified candidates from comprehensive schools (comprehensive

schools in Britain are those which accept pupils of all abilities. Comprehensive reorganization of
secondary education was a further attempt to achieve equality of educational opportunity, and to
overcome the basic unfairness and inequalities of the tripartite system introduced by the 1994
Education Act) will stand a poor chance of getting such jobs if competing with public school
pupils. The route into the elite jobs is basically through a public school and Oxford and
Cambridge universities (where about 50 per cent of students come from public Schools.”

This situation of inequality of education is just the same in Sri Lanka. The vide disparities between
the rural schools and the schools of public repute testify to this fact. The students who pass the
year 5 scholarship exam are admitted to so-called ‘Public schools’, and it’s a question why some
schools are famous and others are not within a system of so-called equality. It’s a sociological fact
in Sri Lanka that the students from the areas far from the main cities get lesser opportunities
provided by the system of free education itself, while those have become special privileges only
for some.

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New Dimensions:

Recently UNDP outlined some of the required shifts in Human rights thinking:

1) From the state-centered approaches to pluralist, multifactor approaches- with accountability

not only for the state but for media, corporations, schools, families, communities and
individuals.
2) From the national to international and global accountabilities- and from the institutional
obligations of the states to the responsibilities of global actors.
3) From the focus on civil and political rights to a broader concern with all rights – giving
much attention to economic, social and cultural rights.
4) From a punitive to a positive ethos in international pressure and assistance- from reliance on
naming and shaming to positive support.
5) From a focus on multiparty elections to the participation of all through inclusive models of
democracy.
The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in its Chapter VI, provides
the Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Duties:

27. (2) The State is pledged to establish in Sri Lanka a democratic socialist society, the
objectives of which include:
(a) the full realization of the fundamental rights and freedoms of all persons;

(b) the promotion of the welfare of the People by securing and protecting as effectively as it
may, a social order in which justice (social, economic and political) shall guide all the
institutions of the national life

(c) the realization by all citizens of an adequate standard of living for themselves and their
families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, the continuous improvement of living
conditions and the full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities

(d) the rapid development of the whole country by means of public and private economic

activity and by laws prescribing such planning and controls as may be expedient for directing
and coordinating such public and private economic activity towards social objectives and
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the public weal;

(e) the equitable distribution among all citizens of the material resources of the community and
the social product, so as best to subserve the common good;

(f) the establishment of a just social order in which the means of production, distribution and
exchange are not concentrated and centralized in the State, State agencies or in the hands of a
privileged few, but are dispersed among, and owned by, all the people of Sri Lanka;

(g) raising the moral and cultural standards of the People, and ensuring the full development of
human personality; and

(h) the complete eradication of illiteracy and the assurance to all persons of the right to
universal and equal access to education at all levels.

(6) The State shall ensure equality of opportunity to citizens, so that no citizen shall suffer any
disability on the ground of race, religion, language, caste, sex, political opinion or occupation.

(7) The State shall eliminate economic and social privilege and disparity, and the
exploitation of man by man or by the state.

(8) The State shall ensure that the operation of the economic system does not result in the
concentration of wealth and the means of production to the common detriment.

(9) The State shall ensure social security and welfare.

(13) The State shall promote with special care the interests of children and youth, so as to
ensure their full development, physical, mental, moral, religious and social, and to protect them
from exploitation and discrimination.

It is true that Article 29 provides that the provisions of this Chapter do not confer or impose
legal rights or obligations, and are not enforceable in any court or tribunal. But what is implied

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in itself is that they could and must be recognized as rights and it could be argued that time has
ever been ripe for them to be recognized and practically guaranteed as rights of the people, and
mechanisms established for them to be enforceable. The governments can never deviate from
these responsibilities.

The Human Rights Mechanism throughout the world seems to be a failure in all these respects.
It is the same with our country too. We can conclude in this context that a new Human Rights
Act for Sri Lanka is sine qua non.

Bibliography:

Books:
1) Human Rights- Social Justice in the age of the Market: Koen De Feyter.Zed Books.( 2005) ISBN:
1842774875

2) Priperty for People not for Profit- Alternatives to the Global Tyranny of Capital: Ulrich Duchrow and Frang
J. Hinkelmmert. (2004) Zed Books. ISBN: 1842774794

3) Privatization and Human Rights in the age of Globalization: Koen de Feyter & Felipe Gomez Isa. (2005)
Intersentia Antwerp-Oxford Publishing. ISBN: 90-5095-422-7

4) Another World is Possible-Proper Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum; Editted by
William F Fisher & Thomas Ponnaiah. (2003) Zed Books ISBN: 0195629167

5) Questioning Globalization: Kavaljit Singh (2005) Zed books. ISBN: 1-84277-279-1

6) Economic Glibalization and Human Rights: Wolfgang Benedek, Koen Feyter , Fabriziomarrella. (Antwerp:
Intersentia ) 2005

7) Poverty and Wealth, Citizenship, Deprivation & Privilege: John Scott, Longman Sociology series.

8) Political Economy of Sri Lanka: Pradeep Bhargava (1987) ISBN: 8170130476

9) Law and Poverty- The Legal System and Poverty Reduction: Edited by Lucy Williams, Asbjorn Kjonstand &
Reter Robson. (2003) Zed Books.

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10) Human Rights and Development- Towards mutual Reinforcement: Edited by Philip Alston and Mary
Robinson (2006) Oxford University Press. ISBN: 019568411-7

11) Justice V.K. Krishna Iyer on Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles: Shailja Chander (2003) Deep &
Deep Publications.

12) Competing Equalities- Law and the Backward Classes in India: Marc Galanter. Oxford University Press
(1984) ISBN: 0195629167

13) Meanings of Globalization- Inian & French Perspectives. Edited by Rama S. Melkote. Sterling Publishers.
ISBN; 81-207-2375-9

14) Poverty and Fundamental Rights. The Justification and Enforcement of Socio-economic Rights: David
Bilchitz (2007) Oxford UP. isbn: 978-0-19-920491-5

15) An Introduction to Sociology: Ken Browne; 3rd Edi.2005. Polity publishers.

16) International Justice and the Third World: Edited by Robin Attfield & Barry Wilkins, (1992) ISBN: 0-415-
06925-4.

17) Reduction, Rationality and Game Theory in Marxian Economics: Bruce Philp; Routledge Frontiers of
Political Economy. (2005) ISBN 0415287650

18) The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics: Alan Freeman, Andrew Kliman, Julian
Wells. (2004) Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 1840645601

19) Parecon- Life After Capitalism: Michell Albert, 2003. Verso. ISBN 185984698x

20) Human Rights and Capitalism- A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Globalization: Janet Dine & Andrew
Fagan. 2006.

21) Human Rights, an Agenda for the 21st Century; Edited by Angela Hegarty & Sibohan Leonard; Cavendish
Publishing.1999.

Articles:

1) World Poverty and Human Rights: Thomas Pogge. Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 19 Issue I, 2005.

2) The Violation of Human Rights as a Determinant of Poverty: Alfredo Sfeir Vounis. International Social
Science Journal

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3) The Beautiful, Expanding Future of Poverty: Popular Economics as a Psychological defense; Ashis Nandy.
International Studies Review 2002.

4) From Cold War to Trade War: Neocolonialosm and Human Rights: Susan Koshy . Social Text.

5) Between Political Liberalism and Post national Cosmopolitanism- Toward an alternative Theory of Human
Rights: David Ingram 2003. Political Theory.

6) Poverty as Human Rights Violations: Genevieve Koubi. International Social Science Journal Vol.56.2004.

7) Poverty and Human Rights – The Issue of Systematic economic discrimination and some concrete proposals
for Reform: Christina Arnsperger. International Social Science Journal ,V0l.56, June 2004.

8) Changing Income Inequalities within and between Nations-New Evidence: Brian Goesling. American
Sociological Review, 2001.

9) Fair Opportunity in Education- A Democratic Equality Perspective: Elizabeth Anderson. Ethics Journal.July,
2007.

10) Libertarianism, Utility and Economic Competition: Jonathan Wolff. Virginia Law Review. 2006.

11) Return to Empire. The New US Imperialism in Comparative Historical Perspective: George Steinnetz.2005.

12) The Failure of Liberal Morality: Joshep B. Tamney; Sociology of Religion, 2005

13) Fairness and Redistribution; Alberto Alesina,George Marios Angelter; The American Economic Review,
Vol95,No4 2005

14) Global inequality: bringing politics back in- Jan Nederveen Pieterse. Third World Quarterly, Vol 23, No 6, pp
1023-1046, 2002

15) American Schooling and Educational Inequality: A Forecast for the 21st Century:Adam Gamoran.
Sociology of Education Extra Issue 2001.

The Human Rights Society of the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo, is a student
body representing its own opinion and it represents no standing or opinion of the University
of Colombo and/or the Faculty of Law.

http://groups.google.lk/group/hrslawcmb

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