Global Poverty and the Law

Catalog description

With more than a billion people living on less than $2 a day, global poverty is one of the biggest challenges currently facing humanity. Even though those who suffer the most are located in the developing world, many of the policies, economic opportunities, and legal actions that offer the biggest potential for global poverty alleviation are made in the United States. This course will provide an introduction to the study of global poverty. What causes poverty? Why have some parts of the developing world done better at alleviating poverty than others? Can the world ever be free of poverty, as the World Bank's official motto suggests? How is the COVID pandemic affecting global poverty, and how should policymakers think about any potential tradeoffs? More generally, what can aspiring lawyers do to improve the condition of the world's impoverished? These are some of the questions this course is designed to address. This course is intended especially for future lawyers and policymakers who seek a deeper understanding of the developing world. After a brief overview that will familiarize students with the major concepts and empirical debates in poverty and development studies, we will examine a variety of 'causes' of poverty, from poor governance to lack of economic opportunity to the role of society. Since this course is just as much about what can be done, we shall also consider applied approaches to poverty alleviation. These types of interventions include political/legal reforms such as anti-corruption initiatives, 'rule of law' interventions, right to information programs, privatization, and community-driven development models; economic solutions such as cash transfers and microfinance; and technological approaches such as new methods for measuring policy impact and the application of new technologies for state identification and distribution programs. In addition to…