Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
Short title	Human Rights Act 1998
Parliament	United Kingdom Parliament
Long title	An Act to give further effect to rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights; to make provision with respect to holders of certain judicial offices who become judges of the European Court of Human Rights; and for connected purposes.
Statute book chapter	[1998] c 42
Royal assent	9 November 1998
Commencement	2 October 2000
Amendments	Sub-s (1): in para (c) words “Article 1 of the Thirteenth Protocol” in square brackets substituted by SI 2004/1574, art 2(1). Date in force: 22 June 2004: see SI 2004/1574, art 1. Sub-s (4): words “Secretary of State” in square brackets substituted by SI 2003/1887, art 9, Sch 2, para 10(1). Date in force: 19 August 2003: see SI 2003/1887, art 1(2).
Related legislation	Human Rights Act 1998 (Amendment) Order 2004, SI 2004/1574 (made under sub-s (4)).
Status	Current

The Human Rights Act 1998 (c 42) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 9 November 1998, and mostly came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim is to "give further effect" in UK law to the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Act makes available in UK courts a remedy for breach of a Convention right, without the need to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It also totally abolished the death penalty in UK law (although this was not required by the Convention in force for the UK at that time). However, by the section 36 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 the death penalty was already abolished.

In particular, the Act makes it unlawful for any public body to act in a way which is incompatible with the Convention, unless the wording of an Act of Parliament means they have no other choice. It also requires UK judges to take account of decisions of the Strasbourg court, and to interpret legislation, as far as possible, in a way which is compatible with the Convention. However, if it is not possible to interpret an Act of Parliament so as to make it compatible with the Convention, the judges are not allowed to override it. All they can do is issue a declaration of incompatibility. This declaration does not affect the validity of the Act of Parliament: in that way, the Human Rights Act seeks to maintain the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty (see: Constitution of the United Kingdom). An individual can still take his case to the Strasbourg court as a last resort.

Historical context

Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe after World War II. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was the Chair of the Committee on Legal and Administrative Questions of the Council's Consultative Assembly from 1949 to 1952, and oversaw the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing "effective political democracy", from the strong traditions of freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom. As a founding member of the Council of Europe, the UK acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights in March 1951. However it was not until Harold Wilson's government in the 1960s that British citizens were able to bring claims in the European Court of Human Rights. Over the 1980s, it was widely perceived that the executive misused its power and that, with movements like Charter 88 (which invoked the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689) a British Bill of Rights was needed to secure a human rights culture at home.

The Labour party incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into law through the Human Rights Act 1998. The 1997 white paper "Rights Brought Home" stated:

It takes on average five years to get an action into the European Court of Human Rights once all domestic remedies have been exhausted; and it costs an average of £30,000. Bringing these rights home will mean that the British people will be able to argue for their rights in the British courts - without this inordinate delay and cost.

Structure of the Act

The Human Rights Act places a duty on all courts and tribunals in the United Kingdom to interpret legislation so far as possible in a way compatible with the rights laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights (section 3(1)). The limits to judicial creativity have been much debated but it is now clear that the courts cannot interpret Acts of Parliament in a way that would undermine their clear meaning. The declaration does not invalidate the legislation, but permits the amendment of the legislation by a special fast-track procedure under section 10 of the Act. As of August 2006, 20 declarations had been made, of which 6 were overturned on appeal.

The Human Rights Act applies to all public bodies within the United Kingdom, including central government, local authorities, and bodies exercising public functions. However, it does not include Parliament when it is acting in its legislative capacities.

Despite the fact that the Act states that it applies to public bodies, it has had increasing influence on private law litigation between individual citizens leading some academics to state that it has horizontal effect as well as vertical effect (as in disputes between the state and citizens). This is because section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act defines courts and tribunals as public bodies meaning their judgments must comply with human rights obligations except in cases of declarations of incompatibility. Therefore judges have a duty to act in compatibility with the Convention even when an action is a private one between two citizens.

Even though the Act's interpretative instruction to interpret legislation as compatible with Convention rights as so far as is possible in section 3(1) applies only to statute and not common law.

Rights protection under the Act

The Act provides that it is unlawful for a ''public authority'' to act in such a way as to contravene ''Convention rights''. For these purposes public authority includes any other person "whose functions are functions of a public nature." It also explicitly includes the Courts. Convention rights includes only those rights specified in section 1 of the Act (these are recited in full in Schedule 1). In the interpretation of those rights the Act provides that the domestic Courts "may" take into account the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

Section 7 enables any person, with ''standing'', to raise an action against a public authority which has acted or proposes to act in such a Convention-contravening manner. A person will have standing to do so provided they would satisfy the "victim test" stipulated by Article 34 of the Convention. This is a more rigorous standard than is ordinarily applied to standing in English, although not Scottish, judicial review.

If it is held that the public authority has violated the claimant's Convention rights, then the Court is empowered to "grant such relief or remedy, or make such order, within its powers as it considers just and appropriate." This can include an award of damages, although the Act provides additional restrictions on the Court's capacity to make such an award.

However, the Act also provides a defence for public authorities if their Convention violating act is in pursuance of a mandatory obligation imposed upon them by Westminster primary legislation. The Act envisages that this will ordinarily be a difficult standard to meet though since it requires the Courts to read such legislation (and for that matter subordinate legislation) "So far as it is possible to do so...in a way which is compatible with the Convention rights."

Where it is impossible to read primary legislation in a Convention compliant manner, the only sanction available to the Courts is to make a ''Declaration of Incompatibility'' in respect of it. The power to do so is restricted to the higher Courts. Such a Declaration has no direct impact upon the continuing force of the legislation but it is likely to produce public pressure upon the government to remove the incompatibility. It also strengthens the case of a claimant armed with such a decision from the domestic Courts in any subsequent appeal to Strasbourg. In order to provide swift compliance with the Convention the Act allows Ministers to take remedial action to amend even offending primary legislation via subordinate legislation.

Abolition of the death penalty

The Act (section 21(5)) completely abolished the death penalty in the United Kingdom, effective on royal assent. Previously to this, the death penalty had already been abolished for murder, but it remained in force for certain military offences (although these provisions had not been used for several decades). (The death penalty for treason had already been abolished by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.)

Note that this provision was not required by the European Convention (protocol 6 permits the death penalty in time of war; protocol 13, which prohibits the death penalty for all circumstances, did not then exist); rather, the government introduced it as a late amendment in response to parliamentary pressure.

Notable human rights case law

Lee Clegg's murder conviction gave rise to the first case invoking the Act, brought by ''The Times'' in October 2000 which sought to overturn a libel ruling against the newspaper.

''Campbell v. MGN Ltd.'' [2002] EWCA Civ 1373, Naomi Campbell and Sara Cox both sought to assert their right to privacy under the Act. Both cases were successful for the complainant (Campbell's on the second attempt; Cox's attempt was not judicially decided but an out of court settlement was reached before the issue could be tested in court) and an amendment to British law to incorporate a provision for privacy is expected to be introduced.

''Venables and Thompson v. News Group Newspapers'' [2001] 1 All ER 908, the James Bulger murder case tested whether the Article 8 (privacy) rights of Venables and Thomson, the convicted murderers of Bulger, applied when four newspapers sought to publish their new identities and whereabouts, using their Article 10 rights of freedom of expression. Dame Butler-Sloss granted permanent global injunctions not to publish the material because of the disastrous consequences such disclosure might have for the former convicts, not least the possibility of physical harm or death (hence claims for Article 2 rights were entertained, and sympathised with).

''A and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department'' [2004] UKHL 56, on 16 December 2004, the House of Lords held in that Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, under whose powers a number of non-UK nationals were detained in Belmarsh Prison, was incompatible with the Human Rights Act. This precipitated the enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 to replace Part 4 of the 2001 Act.

Amesh Chauhan and Dean Hollingsworth were photographed by a speed camera in 2000. As is standard practice for those caught in this way, they were sent a form by the police asking them to identify who was driving the vehicle at the time. They protested under the Human Rights Act, arguing that they could not be required to give evidence against themselves. An initial judgment, by Judge Peter Crawford at Birmingham Crown Court, ruled in their favour but this was later reversed.

''Price v. Leeds City Council'' [2005] EWCA Civ 289, on 16 March 2005 the Court of Appeal upheld a High Court ruling that Leeds City Council could not infringe the right to a home of a Roma family, the Maloneys, by evicting them from public land. The court however referred the case to the House of Lords as this decision conflicted with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights.

In March 2006, the High Court in London ruled against a hospital's bid to turn off the ventilator that kept the child, known as Baby MB, alive. The 19-month-old baby has the genetic condition spinal muscular atrophy, which leads to almost total paralysis. The parents of the child fought for his right to life, despite claims from medics that the invasive ventilation would cause an 'intolerable life'.

''Connors v. UK'', a judgment given by the European Court of Human Rights, declared that travellers who had their licences to live on local authority-owned land suddenly revoked had been discriminated against, in comparison to the treatment of mobile-home owners who did not belong to the traveller population, and thus their Article 14 (protection from discrimination) and Article 8 (right to respect for the home) rights had been infringed. However, there has never been a case where the Act has been successfully invoked to allow travellers to remain on greenbelt land, and indeed the prospects of this ever happening seem highly unlikely after the House of Lords decision in ''Kay and others and another v. London Borough of Lambeth and others heard with Price v Leeds City Council'' which severely restricted the occasions on which Article 8 may be invoked to protect someone from eviction in the absence of some legal right over the land.

''Afghan hijackers case 2006'', in May 2006, a politically controversial decision regarding the treatment of 9 Afghan men who hijacked a plane to flee from the Taliban, caused widespread condemnation by many tabloid newspapers (most notably ''The Sun''), the broadsheets and the leaders of both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. It was ruled by an Immigration Tribunal, under the Human Rights Act, that the hijackers could remain in the United Kingdom; a subsequent court decision ruled that the government had abused its power in restricting the hijackers' right to work.

''Mosley v News Group Newspapers Limited'' (2008), Max Mosley challenged an invasion of his private life after the News of the World exposed his involvement in a Sado-masochistic sex act. The case resulted in Mr Mosley being awarded £60,000 in damages.

Criticism

From the Conservative right

During the campaign for the 2005 parliamentary elections the Conservatives under Michael Howard declared their intention to "overhaul or scrap" the Human Rights Act. According to him "the time had come to liberate the nation from the avalanche of political correctness, costly litigation, feeble justice, and culture of compensation running riot in Britain today and warning that the politically correct regime ushered in by Labour's enthusiastic adoption of human rights legislation has turned the age-old principle of fairness on its head".

He cited a number of examples of how, in his opinion, the Human Rights Act had failed: "the schoolboy arsonist allowed back into the classroom because enforcing discipline apparently denied his right to education; the convicted rapist given £4000 compensation because his second appeal was delayed; the burglar given taxpayers' money to sue the man whose house he broke into; travellers who thumb their nose at the law allowed to stay on green belt sites they have occupied in defiance of planning laws".

Some commentators have criticised Howard's claim that a prisoner serving a life sentence was allowed to obtain hard-core pornography in prison. In R (on the application of Morton) v Governor of Long Lartin Prison, a prisoner did indeed seek judicial review of a prison governor's decision to deny him access to hard-core pornography claiming that the governor's policy was a breach of his Article 10 right to freedom of expression; however, the claim was actually rejected.

The schoolboy referred to by Mr Howard was suing for compensation, not to be allowed back into the classroom, since he was already a university student at the time of the court case. In addition, the claim was rejected.

Politicised judges?

One of the major criticisms of the Human Rights Act prior to its introduction was that it would result in unelected judges making substantive judgments about government policies and "legislating" in their amendments to the common law resulting in a usurpation of Parliament's legislative supremacy. In the area of judicial review for example the case of ''R (on the application of Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home Department'' highlights how the introduction of a proportionality test borrowed from ECHR jurisprudence has allowed a greater scrutiny of the substantive merits of a government's policy, meaning that judicial review has become more of an appeal than a review.

The interpretative obligation under s(3)(1) to read primary legislation as Convention compliant, so far as is possible, is not dependent upon the presence of ambiguity in legislation. This means that s(3) of the Human Rights Act could require the court to depart from the unambiguous meaning that legislation would otherwise bear subject to the constraint that this modified interpretation must be one “possible” interpretation of the legislation. Paul Craig argues that this results in the courts adopting linguistically strained interpretations instead of issuing declarations of incompatibility.

However the criticism that judges are legislating can be countered by the fact that courts are unable to interpret legislation in a way which is "inconsistent with a fundamental feature of the legislation". Neither can judges interpret legislation in such a way that would bring about a far-reaching change that would be best dealt with by Parliament.

Journalistic freedom

In 2008 the editor of the ''Daily Mail'' criticised the Human Rights Act for allowing, in effect, a right to privacy at English law despite the fact that Parliament has not passed such legislation. Paul Dacre was in fact referring to the indirect horizontal effect of the Human Rights Act on the doctrine of breach of confidence which has moved English law closer towards a common law right to privacy. In response the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer stated that the Human Rights Act had been passed by Parliament, that people's private lives needed protection and that the judge in the case had interpreted relevant authorities correctly.

A Bill of Rights for Britain?

Following controversial rulings from both the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, David Cameron again suggested a British Bill of Rights. The government commission set up to investigate the case for a Bill of Rights had a split of opinion.

Howard's successor as Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, vowed to repeal the Human Rights Act if he was elected, instead replacing it with a 'Bill of Rights' for Britain. Following the 2010 general election, the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement says that the issue will be investigated.

In 2007, the human rights organisation JUSTICE released a discussion paper entitled ''A Bill of Rights for Britain?'', examining the case for updating the Human Rights Act with an entrenched bill.

Left-wing criticism

In contrast, some have argued that the Human Rights Act does not give adequate protection to rights because of the ability for the government to derogate from Convention rights under article 15 especially in relation to terrorism legislation. Recent cases such as ''R (ProLife Alliance) v. BBC'' [2002] EWCA Civ 297 have been decided in reference to common law rights rather than statutory rights leading to the possibility of judicial activism.

Terrorism

Senior Labour politicians have criticised the Human Rights Act and the willingness of the judiciary to invoke declarations on incompatibility against terrorism legislation. Former Home Secretary Dr John Reid argued that the Human Rights Act was hampering the fight against global terrorism in regard to controversial control orders:

There is a very serious threat - and I am the first to admit that the means we have of fighting it are so inadequate that we are fighting with one arm tied behind our backs. So I hope when we bring forward proposals in the next few weeks that we will have a little less party politics and a little more support for national security.

See also

Human rights in the United Kingdom

Joint Committee on Human Rights

Declaration of incompatibility

Human Rights Act

Notes

External links

Text of the Act from Her Majesty's Stationery Office

Rights Brought Home: Government white paper

Human Rights Act 1998 Leaflet with detailed information from ''Community Legal Service Direct''.

The Human Rights Act - Exploding the Myths by Liberty

A table of all of the declarations of incompatibility which the courts have made as of 1 August 2006 from the Department for Constitutional Affairs

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1998 Category:Constitutional laws of the United Kingdom Category:Human rights in the United Kingdom Category:United Kingdom administrative law

de:Human Rights Act (1998) ms:Akta Hak Asasi Manusia 1998

A human rights act is a statute that sets out individual rights and freedoms under the law. Many jurisdictions have bills of rights enshrined into law and called the "Human Rights Act". This naming convention is commonly used in Commonwealth nations. The following nations have human rights acts:

Australia :ACT Human Rights Act 2004 :Victoria Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2004

Canada :Canadian Human Rights Act, 1977

Republic of Ireland :European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003

New Zealand :Human Rights Act 1993

United Kingdom :Human Rights Act 1998

United States :DC Human Rights Act 1997

References

See also

Bill of Rights

List of short titles

cy:Deddf Hawliau Dynol

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Amartya Sen
school tradition	Welfare economics , Development economics , Public Health , Gender Studies , Political Philosophy , Utilitarianism
color	lightblue
birth date	November 03, 1933
birth place	Santiniketan, Bengal, British India (present-day West Bengal, India)
nationality	IndianBangladesh (Honorary)
citizenship	India
alma mater	Presidency College
field	Welfare economics, ethics
institution	Jadavpur UniversityUniversity of CambridgeHarvard UniversityMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCornell UniversityUniversity of OxfordDelhi School of EconomicsLondon School of EconomicsUniversity of California, BerkeleyStanford University
influences	John RawlsPeter BauerJohn Stuart MillKenneth ArrowPiero Sraffa
opposed	James Mill
influenced	Mahbub ul HaqKaushik BasuJean Dreze
contributions	Human development theory
awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1998) Bharat Ratna (1999)
signature	}}

Amartya Sen, CH (, translit. ''Ômorto Shen''; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members. Sen is best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food.

He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, distinguished fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he previously served as Master from 1998 to 2004. He is the first Indian and the first Asian academic to head an Oxbridge college.

Amartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages over a period of forty years. He is a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. In 2006, ''Time magazine'' listed him under "60 years of Asian Heroes" and in 2010 included him in their "100 most influential persons in the world". New Statesman listed him in their 2010 edition of 'World's 50 Most Influential People Who Matter'.

Early life and education

Sen was born to a Bengali Hindu family of Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. His ancestral home was in Wari, Dhaka, then part of India; now Bangladesh which became a new country in 1971 following its separation from Pakistan which, in turn, was earlier formed as a result of the partition of British India in 1947. Rabindranath Tagore is said to have given Amartya Sen his name ("Amartya" meaning "immortal"). Sen hails from a distinguished family: his maternal grandfather Acharya Kshiti Mohan Sen, a close associate of Rabindranath Tagore, was a renowned scholar of medieval Indian literature, an authority on the philosophy of Hinduism, and also the second Vice Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University. His maternal grandfather was an uncle of Sukumar Sen, ICS the First-Chief Election Commissioner of India and his equally distinguished brothers, Amiya Sen, a very well known doctor, and Barrister Ashoke Kumar Sen, M.P. and a former Union Cabinet Minister for Law and Justice of India. Sen's father Professor Ashutosh Sen and mother Amita Sen were both born in Manikganj, Dhaka. His father was a Professor of Chemistry at Dhaka University and later served for several years in Delhi, becoming the Chairman of the West Bengal Public Service Commission.

Sen began his high-school education at St Gregory's School in Dhaka in 1941, in modern-day Bangladesh. His family came to India following the partition of the country in 1947. In India Sen studied at the Visva-Bharati University school and then at Presidency College, Kolkata, where he earned a First Class First in his B.A. (Honours) in Economics and emerged as the most eminent student of the well known batch of 1953. Subsequently, in the same year, he moved to Trinity College, Cambridge. There he earned a First Class (Starred First) BA (Honours) in 1956. He was elected as the President of the Cambridge Majlis in the same year. While still an undergraduate student of Trinity, he met Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. Mahalanobis, who was much impressed with Sen, returned to Calcutta and immediately recommended the brilliant Cambridge undergraduate to Triguna Sen, the then Education Minister of West Bengal, who had been instrumental in turning the National Council into the new Jadavpur University.

After Sen had completed his Tripos examination and had enrolled for a Ph.D. in Economics to be completed at Trinity College, Cambridge, he returned to India on a two year leave. Triguna Sen immediately appointed him as Professor and the Founder-Head of Department of Economics at Jadavpur University, Calcutta, which was his very first appointment, at the age of 23. This still remains the youngest age at which anybody has been appointed to a professorship or a head of departmentship in India. During his tenure at Jadavpur University, Sen had the good fortune of having economic methodologist, A. K. Dasgupta, who was then teaching at the renowned Benares Hindu University, as his supervisor. After two full years of full time teaching in Jadavpur, Sen returned to Cambridge to complete his Ph.D. in 1959, which was immediately acclaimed as a pathbreaking work.

Subsequently, Sen won a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College, which gave him four years of freedom to do anything he liked, during which period he took the radical decision of studying philosophy. That proved to be of immense help to his later research. Sen related the importance of studying philosophy thus: "The broadening of my studies into philosophy was important for me not just because some of my main areas of interest in economics relate quite closely to philosophical disciplines (for example, social choice theory makes intense use of mathematical logic and also draws on moral philosophy, and so does the study of inequality and deprivation), but also because I found philosophical studies very rewarding on their own." However, his deep interest in philosophy can be dated back to his college days in Presidency, when he both read books on philosophy and debated philosophical themes.

To Sen, then Cambridge was like a battlefield. There were major debates between supporters of Keynesian economics and the diverse contributions of Keynes' followers, on the one hand, and the "neo-classical" economists skeptical of Keynes, on the other. Sen was lucky to have close relations with economists on both sides of the divide. Meanwhile, thanks to its good "practice" of democratic and tolerant social choice, Sen's own college, Trinity College, was an oasis very much removed from the discord. However, because of a lack of enthusiasm for social choice theory whether in Trinity or Cambridge, Sen had to choose a quite different subject for his Ph.D. thesis, after completing his B.A. He submitted his thesis on "the choice of techniques" in 1959 under the supervision of the brilliant but vigorously intolerant Joan Robinson. During his time at Cambridge, and according to Quentin Skinner, Sen was a member of the secret society "Cambridge Apostles".

Between 1960–1961, Amartya was a visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later consequently, he was also a visiting Professor at UC-Berkeley, Stanford, and Cornell.

He has taught economics also at the University of Calcutta and at the Delhi School of Economics (where he completed his ''magnum opus'' Collective Choice and Social Welfare in 1970), where he was a Professor from 1961 to 1972, a period which is considered to be a Golden Period in the history of DSE. In 1972 he joined the London School of Economics as a Professor of Economics where he taught until 1977. From 1977 to 1986 he taught at the University of Oxford, where he was first a Professor of Economics at Nuffield College, Oxford and then the Drummond Professor of Political Economy and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. In 1986 he joined Harvard as the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor of Economics. In 1998 he was appointed as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. In January 2004 Sen returned to Harvard. He is also a contributor to the Eva Colorni Trust at the former London Guildhall University.

Membership and Associations

He has served as Presidents of the Econometric Society (1984), the International Economic Association (1986–1989), the Indian Economic Association (1989) and the American Economic Association (1994). He has also served as President of the Development Studies Association (1980–1982) and is a Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Economic Society, which he has been since 1988.

He presently serves as Honorary Director of Center for Human and Economic Development Studies at Peking University in China and is also a board council member of the Prime Minister of India's Global Advisory Council of Overseas Indians.

Research

Sen's papers in the late 1960s and early 1970s helped develop the theory of social choice, which first came to prominence in the work by the American economist Kenneth Arrow, who, while working at the RAND Corporation, had most famously showed that all voting rules, be they majority rule or two thirds-majority or status quo, must inevitably conflict with some basic democratic norm. Sen's contribution to the literature was to show under what conditions Arrow's impossibility theorem would indeed come to pass as well as to extend and enrich the theory of social choice, informed by his interests in history of economic thought and philosophy.

In 1981, Sen published ''Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation'' (1981), a book in which he demonstrated that famine occurs not only from a lack of food, but from inequalities built into mechanisms for distributing food. Sen also demonstrated that the Bengal famine was caused by an urban economic boom that raised food prices, thereby causing millions of rural workers to starve to death when their wages did not keep up. Sen's interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old boy, he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943, in which three million people perished. This staggering loss of life was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He presents data that there was an adequate food supply in Bengal at the time, but particular groups of people including rural landless labourers and urban service providers like haircutters did not have the monetary means to acquire food as its price rose rapidly due to factors that include British military acquisition, panic buying, hoarding, and price gouging, all connected to the war in the region. In ''Poverty and Famines'', Sen revealed that in many cases of famine, food supplies were not significantly reduced. In Bengal, for example, food production, while down on the previous year, was higher than in previous non-famine years. Thus, Sen points to a number of social and economic factors, such as declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution systems. These issues led to starvation among certain groups in society. His capabilities approach focuses on positive freedom, a person's actual ability to be or do something, rather than on negative freedom approaches, which are common in economics and simply focuses on non-interference. In the Bengal famine, rural laborers' negative freedom to buy food was not affected. However, they still starved because they were not positively free to do anything, they did not have the functioning of nourishment, nor the capability to escape morbidity.

In addition to his important work on the causes of famines, Sen's work in the field of development economics has had considerable influence in the formulation of the ''Human Development Report'', published by the United Nations Development Programme. This annual publication that ranks countries on a variety of economic and social indicators owes much to the contributions by Sen among other social choice theorists in the area of economic measurement of poverty and inequality.

Sen's revolutionary contribution to development economics and social indicators is the concept of 'capability' developed in his article "Equality of What." He argues that governments should be measured against the concrete capabilities of their citizens. This is because top-down development will always trump human rights as long as the definition of terms remains in doubt (is a 'right' something that must be provided or something that simply cannot be taken away?). For instance, in the United States citizens have a hypothetical "right" to vote. To Sen, this concept is fairly empty. In order for citizens to have a capacity to vote, they first must have "functionings." These "functionings" can range from the very broad, such as the availability of education, to the very specific, such as transportation to the polls. Only when such barriers are removed can the citizen truly be said to act out of personal choice. It is up to the individual society to make the list of minimum capabilities guaranteed by that society. For an example of the "capabilities approach" in practice, see Martha Nussbaum's ''Women and Human Development''.

He wrote a controversial article in ''The New York Review of Books'' entitled "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing" (see Missing women of Asia), analyzing the mortality impact of unequal rights between the genders in the developing world, particularly Asia. Other studies, such as one by Emily Oster, have argued that this is an overestimation, though Oster has recanted some of her conclusions.

Sen was seen as a ground-breaker among late twentieth-century economists for his insistence on discussing issues seen as marginal by most economists. He mounted one of the few major challenges to the economic model that posited self-interest as the prime motivating factor of human activity. While his line of thinking remains peripheral, there is no question that his work helped to re-prioritize a significant sector of economists and development workers, even the policies of the United Nations.

Welfare economics seeks to evaluate economic policies in terms of their effects on the well-being of the community. Sen, who devoted his career to such issues, was called the "conscience of his profession." His influential monograph ''Collective Choice and Social Welfare'' (1970), which addressed problems related to individual rights (including formulation of the liberal paradox), justice and equity, majority rule, and the availability of information about individual conditions, inspired researchers to turn their attention to issues of basic welfare. Sen devised methods of measuring poverty that yielded useful information for improving economic conditions for the poor. For instance, his theoretical work on inequality provided an explanation for why there are fewer women than men in India and China despite the fact that in the West and in poor but medically unbiased countries, women have lower mortality rates at all ages, live longer, and make a slight majority of the population. Sen claimed that this skewed ratio results from the better health treatment and childhood opportunities afforded boys in those countries, as well as sex-specific abortion.

Governments and international organizations handling food crises were influenced by Sen's work. His views encouraged policy makers to pay attention not only to alleviating immediate suffering but also to finding ways to replace the lost income of the poor, as, for example, through public-works projects, and to maintain stable prices for food. A vigorous defender of political freedom, Sen believed that famines do not occur in functioning democracies because their leaders must be more responsive to the demands of the citizens. In order for economic growth to be achieved, he argued, social reforms, such as improvements in education and public health, must precede economic reform.

Perceptions: In comparisons

Amartya has been called "the Conscience and the Mother Teresa of Economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, gender inequality, and political liberalism. However, he denies the comparison to Mother Teresa by saying that he has never tried to follow a lifestyle of dedicated self-sacrifice.

The Spinelli Group

On 15 September 2010, Sen supported the new initiative Spinelli Group in the European Parliament, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters are: Jacques Delors, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Guy Verhofstadt, Andrew Duff, Elmar Brok.

India: University mentor for growth and revival

Nalanda International University Project

In May 2007, he was appointed by the Government of India as chairman of Nalanda Mentor Group to examine the framework of international cooperation, and proposed structure of partnership, which would govern the establishment of Nalanda International University Project as an international centre of education seeking to revive the ancient center of higher learning which was present in India from the 5th century CE to 1197 CE.

Presidency College, Kolkata

In June 2011, he was appointed as the Chief Mentor of Presidency College by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Personal life and beliefs

Sen's first wife was Nabaneeta Dev Sen, an Indian writer and scholar, with whom he had two children: Antara, a journalist and publisher, and Nandana, a Bollywood actress. Their marriage broke up shortly after they moved to London in 1971. In 1973, he married his second wife, Eva Colorni, who was Jewish, who died from stomach cancer in 1985. They had two children, Indrani, a journalist in New York, and Kabir, who teaches music at Shady Hill School.

His present wife, Emma Georgina Rothschild, is an economic historian, an expert on Adam Smith and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Sen usually spends his winter holidays at his home in Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, where he likes to go on long bike rides, and maintains a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he and Emma spend the spring and long vacations. Asked how he relaxes, he replies: "I read a lot and like arguing with people."

Sen is a self-proclaimed agnostic and holds that this can be associated with Hinduism as a political entity. In an interview for the magazine ''California'', which is published by the University of California, Berkeley, he noted:

Academic achievements, awards and honors

Sen has received many honorary degrees (over 90) from universities around the world, including from the following: {| | valign="top" | |}

1981; He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1982: He was awarded honorary fellowship by the Institute of Social Studies.

1998: He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in welfare economics.

1999: He received the Bharat Ratna 'the highest civilian award in India' by the President of India.

1999: He was offered the honorary citizenship of Bangladesh by Sheikh Hasina in recognition of his achievements in winning the Nobel Prize, and given that his ancestral origins were in what has become the modern state of Bangladesh

2000: He was awarded the order of Companion of Honour, UK.

2000: He received Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory from the Global Development and Environment Institute.

2000: He was awarded the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service USA;

2000: He was the 351st Commencement Speaker of Harvard University.

2002: He received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

2003: He was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

He is awarded the Life Time Achievement award by Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)

2010: He was chosen to deliver the Demos Annual Lecture 2010

Publications

Choice of Techniques, 1960.

Sen, Amartya, ''An Aspect of Indian Agriculture'', Economic Weekly, Vol. 14, 1962.

''Collective Choice and Social Welfare'', 1970, Holden-Day, 1984, Elsevier. Description.

Sen, Amartya, ''On Economic Inequality'', New York, Norton, 1973. (Expanded edition with a substantial annexe by James E. Foster and A. Sen, 1997).

On Economic Inequality, 1973.

Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981a.

Sen, Amartya, ''Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation'', Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982a.

Sen, Amartya K., ''Choice, Welfare and Measurement'', Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982b. Description and scroll to chapter-preview links.

Sen, Amartya, ''Food Economics and Entitlements'', Helsinki, Wider Working Paper 1, 1986.

Sen, Amartya, ''On Ethics and Economics'', Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987. Scroll to chapter-preview links.

Drèze, Jean and Sen, Amartya, ''Hunger and Public Action''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989.

''Hunger and Public Action'', jointly edited with Jean Drèze, 1989

Sen, Amartya, "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing". ''New York Review of Books'', 1990. ()

Sen, Amartya, ''Inequality Reexamined'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.

Nussbaum, Martha, and Sen, Amartya. ''The Quality of Life''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Preview.

''India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity'', with Jean Drèze, 1995.

Sen, Amartya, ''Reason Before Identity'' (The Romanes Lecture for 1998), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-951389-9

Commodities and Capabilities, 1999.

Sen, Amartya, ''Development as Freedom'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999. (Review by the Asia Times)

Development as Freedom, 1999.

Reason Before Identity, 1999.

Freedom, Rationality, and Social Choice: The Arrow Lectures and Other essays, 2000.

Sen, Amartya, ''Rationality and Freedom'', Harvard, Harvard Belknap Press, 2002.

Rationality and Freedom, 2004.

Inequality Reexamined, 2004.

The Argumentative Indian, 2005.

Sen, Amartya, ''The Argumentative Indian'', London: Allen Lane, 2005. (Review by the Guardian, Review by the Washington Post)

Sen, Amartya, ''The Three R's of Reform'', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 40(19): pp. 1971–1974, 2005.

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time), New York, W. W. Norton, 2006.

Imperial Illusions: India, Britain, and the wrong lessons. By Amartya Sen. Response by Niall Ferguson.

Equality of Capacity by Amartya Sen

''The Idea of Justice'' Harvard University Press & London: Allen Lane,2009. Description and scroll to chapter-preview links.

Other Publications on Google Scholar

See also

The Equality of autonomy, a concept of equality posed by Sen.

The Kerala model, an expression or concept invented and introduced by Sen.

References

External links

Comprehensive list of articles by Sen

Nobel Prize Biography

Amartya Sen: The Possibility of Social Choice (Nobel lecture)

Profile in The Guardian

Profile at The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

;Audio

Sen interviewed about his book The Idea of Justice He discusses how prevailing theories of justice have led us astray. April 2010.

Amartya Sen discusses his book "Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny", on Thoughtcast

Interview on IT Conversations

Immigration and Development, with Amartya Sen, on Open Source (radio show)

Amartya Sen in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The Forum

;Video

Lecture at Duke University "The Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith" March 2010

Category:Academics of the London School of Economics Category:Alumni of Presidency University, Kolkata Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Bengali Nobel laureates Category:Bengali people Category:Consequentialists Category:Recipients of the Bharat Ratna Category:Development economists Category:Development specialists Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Category:Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society Category:Feminist economists Category:Harvard University faculty Category:University of Delhi faculty Category:University of Calcutta faculty Category:Honorary Fellows of Darwin College, Cambridge Category:Indian academics Category:Indian atheists Category:Indian economists Category:Indian Hindus Category:Indian Nobel laureates Category:Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit recipients Category:International development Category:Masters of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Category:Nobel laureates in Economics Category:People associated with Santiniketan Category:People from West Bengal Category:Political theorists Category:The Hunger Project Category:University of Calcutta alumni Category:Wesleyan University people Category:Visva-Bharati University alumni Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:Presidents of the Econometric Society Category:Trustees of the British Museum Category:Jadavpur University faculty Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Indian people of Bangladeshi descent

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