In 1969, the UN delivered the Declaration on Social Progress and Development, clearly calling for "the elimination of poverty; the assurance of a steady improvement in levels of living and of a just and equitable distribution of income". The Fourth United Nations Development Decade formulated in 1990, the Declaration on International Economic Cooperation, in particular the Revitalization of Economic Growth and Development of the Developing Countries and the New Program of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s passed in the second session of UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Paris listed the sustainable economic development in developing countries and the elimination of poverty as the priority goal of international development strategy and the priority field of international co-operation. In December 1992, the 47 session of UN General Assembly designated October 17 to be the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action in 1993 explained the necessity and urgency of eliminating poverty. It declares that the "existence of widespread extreme poverty inhibits the full and effective enjoyment of human rights; its immediate alleviation and eventual elimination must remain a high priority for the international community," and that "extreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity," calling on all national governments to "promote the human rights of the poorest, and to put an end to extreme poverty". In 1995, the UN World Summit for Social Development focused on the discussion of issues of poverty elimination, social harmony and developmental improvement. This meeting passed its "declaration" and "program of action", and designated 1996 to be the world year of poverty elimination. In 2000, the 55th session of the UN General Assembly passed the UN Millennium Declaration, whose the third part was titled "Development and Poverty Eradication", declaring that "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want".¹ Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-general of the UN at that time, delivered a speech on the International Human Rights Day in 2006, emphasizing that "Basic human rights– the right to a decent standard of living, to food and essential healthcare, to opportunities for education or decent work, or to freedom from discrimination – are precisely what the world's poorest need most. Yet, by virtue of their enfeebled status, they are the ones least able to achieve or defend such "universal" rights. As a result, human rights are jeopardized wherever and whenever a man, woman or child subsists in extreme poverty."

All the above-mentioned documents have stated the same standpoint, that is, to eliminate poverty is a prerequisite for all the social members to equally enjoy a life based on modern material civilization, and thus should become a human rights goal that the international community is committed to. In other words, to eliminate poverty is an innate component of contemporary basic concept of human rights, and a basic piece of human rights.

1. Differences exist in the International Community on Understanding the Relations between Poverty Elimination and Human Rights The UN have made some resolutions on the point that poverty elimination is an important piece of human rights, but differences still exist among different countries in understanding this issue, so one can hardly say that a consensus has been really reached. Due to different interests pursuits and diverse understanding among different countries, the process of poverty elimination is not satisfactory although some achievements have been constituted. Especially, the Western and Eastern countries are obviously dissimilar deeply in their consciousness in understanding and dealing with the point that poverty elimination is a basic human rights issue, and that has caused sluggish activities and inefficiency. Apart from political and ideological factors as well as interest motives, other causes of these disputes include historical backgrounds, traditional ideas and habitual thought. Political and interest reasons have been discussed a lot, so this essay is focused on the historical reasons and habitual thought.

1.1 Historical Disparities Formed in Dissimilar Human Rights Contexts between the West and the East Are a Latent Cause for the Disputes The so-called West and East here are not geographic concepts in a strict sense; rather, they refer to the developed countries represented by Europe and the developing ones in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. In 2007, the least developed countries in the world approved by the UN numbered to 50, in particular, 34 in Africa, 10 in Asia, one in Latin America, and 5 in Oceania. ²Most of these countries used to be colonies of European countries.

Europe was the original place of modern bourgeoisie revolutions, but the developing countries in a large number used to be the colonies of European developed countries. These two have distinct historical positions and developmental processes, which are partly the causes of the differences in the issue of human rights.

European countries stress political rights such as the freedom of speeches, congregations, association and religions, which are directly related to the social status and political pursuits of newly arising bourgeois as men of property in the early stage of bourgeoisie revolutions. The bourgeois, economically powerful, were politically powerless and socially humble; they were deeply oppressed by a variety of feudal privileges. In this case, some enlightening bourgeoisie thinkers put forwards their theories of the so-called natural rights such as social contract, innate rights of man and people's sovereignty to smash feudal constraints and strive for their own liberation. These natural rights include the right to life, the right to property, the right to self-defense and the right to equality. Evidently, to protect private property was a requirement of the newly arising bourgeois to safeguard their own economic interests, and to pursue the freedom of speeches, congregations, association and religions was banner for them to seize political power, but to eliminate poverty was not their concern. In this way were formed the political context and human rights contents of European countries, that is, the emphasis on protecting the private possessions of man of property rather than helping proletarians securing wealth. Therefore, the human rights put forward during the bourgeoisie revolutions were in fact those of man of property. Take the universal suffrage after the English Revolution as an example. For more than half a century after the triumph of the revolution, people with the vote numbered only one twenty-eighth of the population, and those eligible for election were even in smaller amounts. The very reason was that the law stipulated some property qualification for voters. In other words, only those with a certain amount of property had the political rights such as the vote, and only such rights were regarded as human rights at that time. In such a context of human rights, poverty elimination did not belong to the category of human rights, of course. Such thought and cognitive inertia are still latently working on European populace. Publicly, they admit that poverty elimination is human right, but deeply at heart their perceptions are discounted. When in activities, it is indicated as less enthusiasm and limited contribution to international poverty alleviation causes.

On the contrary, most developing countries underwent colonist oppression and depredation. These countries were deprived and backwards; after their independence, which was a paramount political mission, the priority task in the face of them is just to change their economically backward situation, develop their economy and improve their living standards. Therefore, poverty elimination becomes a priority human rights issue, of course, for these countries.

1.2 Superiority Complex in Human Rights Consciousness and Thought Habit Incur the Cognitive Hindrance in Recognizing That Poverty Elimination Is Basic Human Rights As time goes, the contents of human rights are constantly enriched, and that is a matter of course. That is a fact that the Western community cannot deny, but because the concept of human rights was originated from the West, they unavoidably have an idea deeply in their consciousness that their human rights propositions are orthodox, therefore, they always have an authoritative air in the face of human rights issues, and many of them show a conservative or even inimical attitude towards the new contents of human rights.

It is true that the concept of human rights was put forwards and given its preliminary meanings by the Western countries, but as the history advances, an undeniable fact is that if one stubbornly insists that only the concept of human rights originally put forwards by the West is the proper connotation of human rights in their real sense, it will lead to the parochialism and partiality of human rights in the Western language system. Such a concept of human rights is certainly a hindrance to the contemporary related practices. As facts have proved, poverty seriously hinders the progress and development of the contemporary world, and poverty elimination is a huge challenge for the guarantee of human rights; the traditional Western human rights language, just like its international political and economic orders that have prevailed for hundreds of years, cannot meet the requirement to respond to and cope with the new problems in the development of mankind considering the changing international situation. International human rights languages should keep up with times and include new contents, and to eliminate poverty unavoidably becomes a new connotation of the development of international human rights career.

2. It Is a Huge Responsibility to Eliminate Poverty and Guarantee Human Rights Poverty is one of the sources of wars, riots and terrorism, and it is also an enormous hindrance against a fair and just social order and equal relations between human beings. Thanks to the concerted efforts by the international community, some preliminary effects have been achieved in international poverty alleviation. According to the 2007 World Development Indicators publicized by the World Bank, global poverty rate kept decreasing in the first four years of this century, and the population in poverty had reduced to less than one billion. As statistics show, the population whose daily living cost is less than one US dollars in the globe decreased to 18.4% in 2004; and it is estimated that a population of 985 million or so lived in extreme poverty. While in 1990, the number was 1.25 billion.

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