E/CN.4/2006/43 page 4 Introduction 1. At its fifty-fourth session, in resolution 1998/25, the Commission on Human Rights established the mandate of the independent expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty. A.M. Lizin (Belgium) held the mandate from 1998 to 2004. The Commission, at its sixtieth session, extended the mandate for two years and appointed Mr. Arjun Sengupta (India) as the new mandate holder. Mr. Sengupta submitted his first report (E/CN.4/2005/49) to the sixty-first session of the Commission. At this session, the Commission, in resolution 2005/16, reconfirmed the mandate of the independent expert as set out in resolutions 1998/25 and 2004/23 and further invited him to “pay special attention to the concrete experiences of involvement of people living in extreme poverty in the political decision-making and social processes” and “to continue to focus on the various aspects of the link between human rights and extreme poverty” (paras. 11-12). 2. Since the late 1980s, when the issue of extreme poverty started to be examined by the United Nations system as a human rights issue, there has been an increasing recognition of the negative impact of poverty, and extreme poverty in particular, on people’s ability to enjoy basic human rights and freedoms. In 1987, at the forty-third session of the Commission on Human Rights, Father Wresinski, founder of ATD Fourth World, pleaded for focused work on extreme poverty and involving the poorest in a study that should be conducted to explore and define the linkages between human rights and extreme poverty. Subsequently, in 1989, at its forty-fifth session, the Commission on Human Rights for the first time discussed extreme poverty as a separate issue, affirming that “extreme poverty and exclusion from society constitute a violation of human dignity and that urgent national and international action is therefore required to eliminate them” (resolution 1989/10). 3. In 1996, Leandro Despouy, Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission, submitted his final report on the issue of extreme poverty and human rights (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/13), clarifying how different forms of deprivation reinforce each other and form a vicious circle of poverty. In 2001, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a statement on poverty, defining poverty “ as the lack of basic capabilities to live in dignity” and “as a human condition characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights” (E/C.12/2001/10). 4. In his first report to the Commission in 2005 (E/CN.4/2005/49), the independent expert built on preceding work on the link between extreme poverty and human rights, including that of the previous mandate holder, the Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) the World Bank and world conferences such as the 1995 World Summit for Social Development. On the basis of the rich material available, the independent expert proposed a working definition of extreme poverty as a composite of income poverty (i.e. income below a minimum level barely sufficient to meet the basic needs), human development poverty (i.e. deprivation of food, health, education, housing and social security needed for any human development), and social exclusion (i.e. being marginalized, discriminated and left out in social relations), encompassing the notions of deprivation of basic security and capability.