Jean Galbraith, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and co-authors have published 'Poverty Penalties as Human Rights Problems' in the American Journal of International Law. Their research focuses on financial sanctions imposed by criminal justice systems around the world. It uplifts 'poverty penalties'—monetary sanctions and related consequences that disproportionately burden low-income people—as an urgent yet understudied international human rights issue.
"In many countries, if you can't afford to pay your fine, then the consequence is that you go to jail," Galbraith said."This is an incredibly harsh rule—and unless a fine is perfectly scaled to a person's finances, it means thatare penalized far more in practice than are high-income people. But somehow this issue has flown under the radar of international human rights law.
"This paper highlights an important topic seldom explored from an international law perspective," co-author Latifa AlMarri said."I aspire for our work to inspire furtherDespite the prevalence of poverty penalties, the past century of international human rights law discourse has largely ignored the issue. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has no specific references to excessive fines or the intersection of financial penalties and poverty.
As the authors show, poverty penalties have received a modest increase in international attention in the last decade. The authors advocate for a more expansive approach as a matter of international human rights law, with important implications for global poverty reduction and criminal justice reform efforts.
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