ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the politics of human rights and efforts to develop human rights regimes relating to women, children, and humanity generally. It looks at the problem of "human development" and the degree of rich-poor gaps between and within nation-states. The chapter shows the extremes of wealth and poverty found in the North and South, with the twenty "most livable" countries found exclusively in North America and Europe and all of the twenty "least livable" ones found in sub-Saharan Africa. For decades, Latin America has been the region with the greatest disparity in wealth within societies. Charles Lipson is referring primarily to the "Bretton Woods system" institutions created after World War II—the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. However, these institutions were designed more to promote international economic order than justice.
