Theright of women not to be poor: Good intentionsbut wrong human rights policy Le droit humain des f

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• The right of women not to be poor Good
  intentions but wrong human rights policy Le
  droit humain des femmes de ne pas être pauvre un
  leurre juridique à saveur statistique
• Greenberg LectureUniversity of OttawaLucie
  Lamarche
• llamarch_at_uottawa.ca
• October 31st 2007

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SUMMARY

• Question poverty captured by the law
• Thinking bottom up the Québec example
• Thinking top down political and
  interdisciplinary influences
• About womens rights

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Starting point the Québec Act to combat poverty
and social exclusion (2002)

• The object of this Act is to guide the Government
  and Québec society as a whole towards a process
  of planning and implementing actions to combat
  poverty, prevent its causes, reduce its effects
  on individuals and families, counter social
  exclusion and strive towards a poverty-free
  Québec. (art. 1)
• For the purposes of this Act, poverty means the
  condition of a human being who is deprived of the
  resources, means, choices and power necessary to
  acquire and maintain economic self-sufficiency or
  to facilitate integration and participation in
  society. (art. 2)

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COMPARE

• Poverty may be defined as a human condition
  characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation
  of the resources, capabilities, choices, security
  and power necessary for the enjoyment of an
  adequate standard of living and other civil,
  cultural, economic, political and social rights
• UN Doc E/C.12/2001/10, ICESCR Committee, Poverty
  and the International Covenant on Economic,
  Social and Cultural Rights.

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The Devil is in the Details

• The national strategy is intended to
  progressively make Québec, by 2013, one of the
  industrialized nations having the least number of
  persons living in poverty, according to
  recognized methods for making international
  comparisons (art. 4)

OECD ??? UNDP ???
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and there is a lot of details

• A National Strategy
• A Plan of Action
• A Comité consultatif
• An Observatoire sur la pauvreté
• A Fonds québécois dinitiatives sociales
• Analyse dimpact réglementaire (Smart Regulation)

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but not a lot of rights .

• The action plan must also propose amendments to
  the Employment-Assistance Program, to the extent
  provided for by the Act respecting income
  support, employment assistance and social
  solidarity in particular to introduce the
  minimum benefit principle, a threshold below
  which benefits cannot be reduced by reason of the
  application of administrative penalties, setoff
  or a combination of both

Still waiting .
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Or duties .

• Each minister shall, if the minister considers
  that proposals of a legislative or regulatory
  nature could have direct and significant impacts
  on the incomes of persons or families who,
  according to the indicators retained under this
  Act, are living in poverty, shall, when
  presenting the proposals to the Government, give
  an account of the impacts the minister foresees.
  (art.20)

Whats in a Shall ?
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Made in Québec ?I dont think so
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Diversity of sources and institutional influences

• Poverty and Economic Development (WB, 1992)
• Poverty and Capabilities (A. Sen M. Nussbaum)
• Poverty as a humanitarian issue (ATD Quart Monde)
• Extreme Poverty and Human Dignity (UN S.R. Lizin,
  Despouy)
• Poverty as a Human Right Issue (UN HCHR UN ESCR
  Comm.)
• Global Growth and Poverty (Global Compact)

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Influences that hit the road

• Domestic Legislations
• Benchmarking
• Indicators.

My poor are less poor than yours .
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Poverty A concept in no vacuum

• The New Social State Model Managing the Poor
• The New Public Management Model results based
  oriented (targets) and management plans for
  ministries
• The Expert Model
• The Governance Model lets define whats
  unsustainable all together (process over
  substance)
• The functional Basic Needs/Market Oriented Model.

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Poverty and Social Rights

• The Poor as a legal category
• Beneficiaries on a parallel track
• More Poor but Less Beneficiaries

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A World of Experts

• Public Management and Policies
• Social Science
• Social workers
• Program Evaluation
• NGOs
• Think Tanks
• Human Rights Impact Assessment

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The New Politics of Human Rights process over
substance ?

• The right to
• Participate
• Be consulted
• Define Quantitative Poverty
• Sit on an advisory body
• Is not the right . to Rights

But I cant afford to travel to the
consultation !!!
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The Politics of Human Rights . À la française

• Le droit tend à perdre sa fonction symbolique
  instituante de relations sociales perçues comme
  justes, au profit dune fonction gestionnaire.
  Une normativité gestionnaire prend le pas sur une
  normativité civiliste
• Jacques Commaille, Lesprit sociologique des
  lois, 1994.

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The Politics of Human Rights . À la française
(bis)

• Dès lors quils sont promus principes fondateurs
  de laction, les droits de lhomme (sic)
  deviennent une politique La mutation des
  droits de lhomme entraîne une mutation des
  droits sociaux, leur faisant perdre le fonction
  spécifique de compensation de linégalité
  sociale.
• Marcel Gauchet, dans De la responsabilité
  solidiaire, 2003.

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Women, Poverty and Needs

• Need is a political instrument, meticulously
  prepared, calculated and used (Foucault,
  Discipline and Punish, 1979)
• Feminists who aim to intervene in the latest
  capitalist culture could benefit from considering
  why needs talk become so prominent in the
  political culture of welfare state societies ?
  (Fraser, Unruly Practices, 1989).

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The political discourse and poor women

• Poor women are disorganised citizens (neurotic)
• Poor women are trouble (responsibility)
• Poor women as a specific social group (identity)
• Poor women are the future of the world
  (WB/economic)
• A society made of poor women is not competitive
  (!!!)
• Poor women are vulnerable women to be helped
  and protected

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Legal Management of Poor Women and of their Needs

• Women have to right to be less poor
• Market needs poor women/workers (Vosko) so lets
  protect women
• Experts look for the adequate and functional
  level of poverty of women.

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Social Law and the New Poverty Law (NPL)
distinguir por favor .

• NPL aims at keeping women poor and at making them
  part of the political solution
• Social Law refers to any law that challenges the
  genderized prosperity multi dimensional gap.
  Social law is a methodological category of the
  law.

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Social Rights are Womens Rights if .

• All rights are seen as social rights (including
  the redistributive function)
• No right is used as a competing device (competing
  identity groups)
• Women as seen as beneficiaries of all rights
  (empowering position)
• Womens Rights are not restricted to Poors
  Rights.

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CONCLUSION

• The right of women not to be poor is bad human
  rights policy
• We did not choose the poverty/needs agenda more
  that we chose the fight against poverty strategy
• Poverty and needs are not components of the
  progressive realisation of all human rights
  framework
• Poverty and Needs are genderized FACTS
• Tell the law to mind its business !!!!

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No, were not depressive .

• Womens Social Rights are above all political as
  they partly rely on the legal technique to
  express and set the dynamic boundaries of wealth
  redistribution and power.