This work exposes how law is central to the causes and structure of poverty, and explores new possibilities for using the law to alleviate poverty. It covers international human rights conventions, constitutional and statutory provisions, social insurance and social assistance law, and ranges over a wide terrain. Law is examined at its most general, as legally constructed - looking at the ways in which specific laws can either exacerbate poverty or enshrine a human right not to be poor - and in establishing specific rights entitlements that bear on reducing poverty. Finally, and most concretely, it examines the specific role of law in areas like tackling child labour, reducing economic discrimination against women, and the freedom of employees to organize.