E/CN.4/2006/43 page 15 III. THE NOTION OF EXTREME POVERTY 48. The principal value added in the notion of extreme poverty as a denial or violation of human rights is its ability to justify the obligations that it would entail on all the duty bearers. For that, extreme poverty will have to be defined, just as poverty will have to be defined, in terms of rights, the denial of which create the conditions of extreme poverty or poverty. Indeed, extreme poverty, as the term suggests, would be regarded as an extreme form of the conditions of poverty. The value added comes from the notion of extreme poverty having a greater responsibility for all agents in a society recognizing human rights. In other words, by concentrating on extreme poverty, it should be possible to invoke the associated obligations more generally, with the duty bearers finding it difficult or improper to reject the appeals to the related obligation. 49. As discussed in the previous sections, poverty, in order to invoke the applicability of obligations that are legally binding on the duty bearers, has to be defined as the denial of rights that have already been recognized in international human rights law. Since the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights has accorded this legal recognition to notions such as the right to food, health, education, social security and an adequate standard of living, and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights has recognized the right to association, information, freedom of expression, etc., it is not difficult to define poverty in terms of the denial of all these rights. If, in a social arrangement, these rights are fulfilled, it is difficult to imagine that there will be any poverty in the society. In that sense, denial of these rights can be regarded as equivalent to the conditions of poverty. 50. It may not always be possible to go beyond the notion of denial to asserting that poverty is a violation of human rights because the absence of those rights may be the result of existing social arrangements for which no individual party can be blamed or held accountable. To move beyond the notion of denial and to claim that poverty is a human rights violation, one has to go several steps in the chain of arguments. First, concrete programmes of action which can alleviate poverty must be identified. Then they must be proven to be not only technically feasible but institutionally implementable, with some minor, but well-specified processes of institutional and legal reforms supported by international assistance, both in terms of resources and rules and procedures of international transactions. In addition, it is necessary to identify the duty holders and their specific duties, which, if carried out fully, would implement those programmes. The notion of violation by those duty bearers would only be relevant if, in spite of knowing what to do to alleviate the conditions of poverty, they would not be doing anything to carry out their duties. This would mean that the duty bearers have some alternative policy preferences or interests which they consider more important than trying to alleviate poverty. Therefore, even if they do not have a direct responsibility for creating conditions of poverty, or any motivation that can be regarded as legally culpable, it would be possible to say that the duty bearers are violating their obligations to fulfil the rights and therefore should be held accountable for their violation. 51. The discussions of perfect and imperfect obligations, which Amartya Sen used by invoking the Kantian concepts, can be directly applied in this situation. State parties have the perfect obligation to fulfil the rights that can alleviate poverty. They can formulate programmes, reallocate resources from among alternative policy objectives and invoke the imperfect