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Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 54d
- Paragraph text
- [Where States adopt targeted measures, this also poses challenges. In practice, unfortunately, such measures often fail to reach the target population for a variety of reasons, including:] In most countries where subsidies are applied through tariff systems, these are only available to people connected to networks, thus excluding those who rely on kiosks, standpipes or public toilets;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 54f
- Paragraph text
- [Where States adopt targeted measures, this also poses challenges. In practice, unfortunately, such measures often fail to reach the target population for a variety of reasons, including:] Public financing is available only to those who have secure land tenure, thus excluding those living outside the formal legal system;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- In some cases, household income or expenditure data is not available. In such cases, other indicators such as the type of access (for example, whether a small-scale facility is used), property value, size of the residence or geographical location can be used to evaluate the economic capacity of users.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Affordability of water and sanitation services 2015, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Other types of mechanisms to ensure the affordability of services can be built into tariff schemes. Different tariff systems have different potentials but also limitations to ensure the affordability of services. These are generally only relevant to those connected to piped water and sewerage systems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Commissions of inquiry 2012, para. 68
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- The purposes of a commission of inquiry warrant a more flexible approach to rules of evidence, including the credibility of witness testimony. In assessing the credibility of evidence, a commission of inquiry should give special weight to corroborated testimony and to testimony subjected to cross-examination. A commission should also apply general rules in their assessment of the credibility of witnesses, including demeanour, subject to cultural and gender sensitivities. A commission should always accept testimony that is not subject to cross-examination, and should also avail itself of testimony that, if rendered in court, would be excludable as hearsay.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Comparative study of enabling environments for associations and businesses 2015, para. 87
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- Indeed, governments commonly view business as a natural ally of power: its activity stimulates the economy and creates jobs, which enables governments to advance their agendas and helps stabilize political situations. This relationship is, in turn, used to justify certain benefits provided to the business sector, such as tax incentives (though, notably, civil society's significant role in and contribution to economic growth and job creation is often overlooked). Business values are also by definition firmly centred on profit-making, potentially making the sector more politically malleable. Business leaders in some States may see their position as being dependent on power, which makes them cautious about questioning the established order. Businesses also have more resources than associations to lobby governments.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. 6
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- People enter the status or condition of debt bondage when their labour, or the labour of a third party under their control, is demanded as repayment of a loan or of money given in advance, and the value of their labour is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length of the service is not limited and/or the nature of the service is not defined. Consequently, bonded labourers are often trapped into working for very little remuneration, or in some cases none, to repay the loan or advance, even though the value of their labour exceeds that sum of money.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Debt bondage as a key form of contemporary slavery 2016, para. B.
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- [Recommendations to Member States:] Invest in programmes that facilitate people's access to decent work opportunities, in order to ensure that they have economic alternatives to debt bondage.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Different levels and types of services and the human rights to water and sanitation 2015, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- [The present report considers three main types of services:] Individual on-site solutions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Different levels and types of services and the human rights to water and sanitation 2015, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- There are, however, concerns from a human rights perspective. The construction of such systems may be technically difficult to install in and around existing buildings and infrastructure where urban settlements have not been adequately planned, such as in most informal settlements. In many developing countries, the sewerage network is only available in middle and high income areas. Leaving residents of low income areas and informal settlements without access to this service often entrenches inequalities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Different levels and types of services and the human rights to water and sanitation 2015, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- In rural areas, for example, pit latrines may be acceptable if they are well-constructed and emptied as necessary, or filled in and rebuilt elsewhere. Problems arise where these types of latrines are not well built, or risk contaminating the water table. Hygiene concerns will arise if these latrines are not regularly cleaned, which may be difficult where latrine slabs are poorly constructed.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 68i
- Paragraph text
- [Against this backdrop, the Special Rapporteur wishes to make the following recommendations to States:] Special attention of States should be given to the risk of contemporary forms of slavery in the informal economy, including by identifying at risk sectors and conducting effective labour inspections;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 69g
- Paragraph text
- [In relation to businesses, the Special Rapporteur recommends the following:] Business should engage in capacity-building to ensure management and staff, as well as the relevant business partner, awareness-raising on the nature and risks of contemporary forms of slavery in supply chains and the strategies for its eradication.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Eradicating contemporary forms of slavery from supply chains 2015, para. 70c
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur would like to make the following recommendations to other stakeholders:] Consumers should play a more active role in scrutinizing the origin of products and promoting ethical sourcing and other fair trade initiatives;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Extreme inequality and human rights 2015, para. 8
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- Current income-inequality figures are quite dramatic. According to a 2008 study by the International Labour Organization (ILO), over the past two decades the income gap between the top and bottom 10 per cent of wage earners increased in 70 per cent of the countries for which data was available. According to a recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study, the gap between rich and poor in OECD countries is at its highest level in 30 years. In 2007, the average executive manager in the 15 largest firms in the United States of America earned more than 500 times what the average employee in the United States earned, compared with over 300 times in 2003, and similar patterns can be observed in many other countries.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Extreme inequality and human rights 2015, para. 14
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- From the perspective of equality of opportunity, it is problematic if extreme economic inequalities begin at birth. Mr. Piketty has shown that for those born in France between 1910 and 1960, "the top centile of the income hierarchy consisted largely of people whose primary source of income was work". For those born in France in the 1970s, and even more for those born later, things are different, however. Mr. Piketty has written that the "top centile of the social hierarchy in France today are likely to derive their income about equally from inherited wealth and their own labor". Even more problematic is Mr. Piketty's finding that nearly one-sixth of those born in France today "will receive an inheritance larger than the amount the bottom half of the population earns through labor in a lifetime. (And this group largely coincides with the half of the population that inherits next to nothing)."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Extreme inequality and human rights 2015, para. 16
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- The differences in intergenerational economic mobility between countries are not random. Studies have shown a clear negative relationship between economic inequalities in a country and intergenerational earnings mobility. Alan Krueger has called this the "Great Gatsby curve". Joseph Stiglitz has written that the ideal of equal opportunity is increasingly a myth in many countries and that the decline in opportunity has gone hand in hand with growing inequality.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 8a
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- [The present report is premised on the view that the human rights movement needs to address and respond to the fundamental changes that are taking place in economic and social structures at the national and global levels. These include, among others:] The increasingly precarious nature of employment in the age of Uber, Airbnb, outsourcing, subcontracting, zero-hours contracts and the like;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 8d
- Paragraph text
- [The present report is premised on the view that the human rights movement needs to address and respond to the fundamental changes that are taking place in economic and social structures at the national and global levels. These include, among others:] The rapid and seemingly unstoppable growth in inequality across the globe, captured by Oxfam’s statistic that the richest 1 per cent of humanity already controls as much wealth as the remaining 99 per cent, and by the detailed national-level economic analyses of Thomas Piketty and others;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 18
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- In the United Kingdom, basic income proposals were prominent in the period after both world wars. In 1918, Bertrand Russell called for an income for all, sufficient to pay for “necessaries” in post-First World War Britain. And when the Beveridge plan was being debated in 1943, Juliet Rhys-Williams proposed a basic income approach instead of Beveridge’s contributory welfare state plan.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 27
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- Broader political support is suggested by former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who suggests that basic income could possibly be financed out of the profits coming from labour-replacing innovations, or perhaps even from a revenue stream generated by the underlying intellectual property. And a book by the former President of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, also calls for a universal basic income to address a new economy characterized by high unemployment, stagnant wages, declining trade union power, and decreasing job security.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 30
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- Strong support has also come from technology entrepreneurs. According to media reports, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, the web guru Tim O’Reilly, and “a cadre of other Silicon Valley denizens have expressed support for” basic income, calling it the “social vaccine of the twenty-first century”. Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator, the largest start-up “accelerator” in Silicon Valley, is funding a basic income pilot scheme in Oakland, California. He believes that “people should be as free as possible to get ‘as rich as they … want’, so long as the people at the very bottom still have all their basic needs met”. GiveDirectly, funded in part by Google, also seeks to finance basic income experiments in East Africa. Comments made by many of these entrepreneurs suggest that basic income is seen as a way to sustain and legitimize a world in which employment opportunities will be drastically reduced and to reinforce consumer demand which would be greatly weakened without a broad-based minimum redistribution of income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- Negative income taxes, inspired by the work of Milton Friedman, ensure that individuals who earn below a certain threshold receive payments from the government, rather than having to pay taxes. It is similar to basic income in that every citizen is automatically and unconditionally eligible, but it differs from the full basic income in that benefits phase out as incomes rise. Amounts may also be adjusted for households.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 33
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- The concept of a basic income on a global scale has attracted little scholarly attention, but at least two organizations, the Global Basic Income Foundation and World Basic Income, are promoting it. According to the latter, a global basic income would be a “global scheme that gathers and redistributes money, in amounts ranging from a few dollars to over $2,000 per month, depending on circumstances”. The long-term goal is redistribution of wealth and natural resources through “collective shareholdings in global companies, international taxes such as a carbon tax or financial transaction tax, royalties on goods like intellectual property or the extraction of natural resources, or fees for the use of shared goods, such as charging airlines a fee for using our shared airspace”. The present report does not seek to examine the feasibility or otherwise of such an approach.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 35
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- In comparing basic income schemes with the welfare state, it is important to note that some of the proposed forms of basic income are intended to replace the welfare state, while others complement it or only partly replace it. Charles Murray proposes a radical form of basic income designed to replace the welfare state, and to eliminate “programmes that are unambiguously transfers — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare programmes, social service programmes, agricultural subsidies, and corporate welfare”, but that would keep in place State-funded education. But others have argued that “a basic income should not be understood as being, by definition, a full substitute for all existing transfers, much less a substitute for the public funding of quality education, quality health care, and other services”. This approach is supported by commentators for whom basic income schemes “would not necessarily replace contributory benefits”. A Canadian study proposes that a new basic income should come on top of 33 existing income support programmes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Basic income proponents have devoted relatively little attention to the biggest question of all, which concerns affordability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 59
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- The most committed proponents of basic income proclaim their approach to be utopian, not in the sense of being unrealistic or unachievable, but as providing a highly ambitious, sweeping, and progressive vision. Critics or sceptics who raise objections based on unaffordability, the unacceptability of unconditionality or the unrealistic change in mentality required will often be dismissed as unimaginative defenders of an obviously unsatisfactory status quo.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 60
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- But these contrasting views accurately reflect the conclusion that emerges from a comprehensive survey of the many different utopias the world has known, which is that “utopias are essential but potentially dangerous”. In this case, the danger is that the single-minded pursuit of basic income as a magic bullet, capable of resolving many deeply troubling challenges, will distract attention from the deeper underlying complexities and values. But the utopian vision may also provide the much-needed impetus to rethink the optimal shape of social protection explicitly designed to achieve universal realization of the human right to an adequate standard of living in the twenty-first century. At a comparable watershed moment, Lord Beveridge introduced his 1943 report that laid the groundwork for the British welfare state by insisting that a “revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Similarly, an ILO report entitled Decent Work in Global Supply Chains responded to the “negative implications for working conditions” of “the dynamics of production and employment relations within the global economy” by proposing a series of steps such as promoting international labour standards, closing governance gaps and promoting inclusive and effective social dialogue. Unsurprisingly, after lengthy debate on the report, the 2016 International Labour Conference expressed its “concern that current ILO standards may not be fit for purpose to achieve decent work in global supply chains”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- It does not follow from the gap between theory and practice that labour rights should be compromised, let alone abandoned, but it does highlight the fact that traditional approaches might not have much traction in the face of the systematic weakening of labour market institutions, the dramatic increase in more flexible working conditions, and the greatly increased insecurity, including the loss of non-wage benefits, for those who remain employed.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
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