“Bringing human rights tools and perspectives to bear on persistent poverty and inequality is more important than ever in this moment of political and social unrest,” said Professor Davis, whose previous books include Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities; Human Rights Advocacy in the United StatesBringing Human Rights Home; and Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement.

Co-edited by Morten Kjaerum, adjunct professor at University of Aalborg, Denmark, and director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden, and Amanda Lyons, lecturer in law and executive director of the Human Rights Center at University of Minnesota Law School, the Research Handbook starts from the premise that poverty is not solely an issue of minimum income and explores the profound ways that deprivation and distributive inequality of power and capability relate to economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. Leading experts in the human rights field representing a range of disciplines outline a future research agenda to address poverty and inequality head on. Beginning with an interrogation of the definition of poverty, subsequent chapters analyze the dynamics of poverty and inequality in relation to matters such as race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, geography and migration status. The rights to housing, land, health, work, education, protest and access to justice are also explored, with a recognition of the challenges posed by corruption, climate change and new technologies.

The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern Law, the Human Rights Center at University of Minnesota School of Law and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden, co-hosted two webinars on the book on April 14 and May 18, 2021.