A/HRC/5/3 page 13 community begin as imperfect obligations, because, even when the international community decides to act in a certain manner, if the state authorities and other local actors do not perform, the result may not be achieved. For instance, international agreements to liberalize trade as a means of stimulating economic growth may not reduce poverty unless there is a mechanism to redistribute the gains from such trade to poor people who may not have been able to draw benefit from the expanded trading opportunities. The international community still has the duty or imperfect obligation to pursue trade liberalization so as to provide such opportunities, but cannot guarantee that the poorer states will derive gains, nor that Governments will adopt the necessary measures to ensure that the benefits derived from expanded trade are shared by the poor. The non-fulfilment of poverty eradication cannot be regarded as a violation of the obligations of the international community. 25. However, if the state authorities adopt appropriate policies of redistribution of the increased income and adopt policies for removing poverty, the imperfect obligation of the international community would be converted into a perfect obligation, as there would be a very high likelihood that the conditions of poverty could not be removed in the absence of such trade liberalization. 26. One view expressed was that the international community should be held responsible for the violation of a right if it refuses to change the procedure of international transactions that create conditions of deprivation of the right, irrespective of whether the state authorities adopted the right policy. For example, an international regime that results in the increase of the cost of essential drugs would be considered as a direct violation of its obligations, because whether or not the state authorities adopt any policy, this increase would make it very difficult to protect the health of the poor in developing countries. 27. Indeed, Thomas Pogge in his book entitled “World Poverty and Human Rights” (2002) held the international community fully responsible for maintaining the rules and procedures of the international financial, trade and intellectual property regime, which worked against the developing countries, especially the conditions of the poorest amongst them. According to his calculation, a transfer of less than 1 per cent of the world income, most of which is accounted for by the industrial countries, would have been sufficient to abolish poverty throughout the world. The richer countries spend more than that amount in many other areas including armament and wasteful consumption. If eradicating poverty were accepted as a human right entitlement, their inability to mobilize a fraction of that amount for the purpose of taking care of the world’s poorest would be tantamount to their violating human rights. IV. PROGRAMMES FOR ERADICATING EXTREME POVERTY 28. In his previous two reports and his mission report on extreme poverty conditions in the United States, the independent expert had demonstrated various ways in which feasible policies can be designed and implemented to eradicate extreme poverty in different parts of the world. In fact, many of the programmes adopted in different countries including those carried out in collaboration with donor countries and multilateral agencies, have developed elements that have gone quite far towards adopting a rights-based approach for eradicating poverty. It would be useful to carry out a systematic survey of all such practical applications and policies for eradicating poverty, with the view to analysing the successes and failures in terms of human rights achievements. This would make it possible then to demonstrate how a human rights-based