Should developed countries be responsible for the world's poverty?

This was a part of the topic discussed in World Cafe three weeks ago. The other part was "if so, what would we [developed countries] do?". We sat around tables, making a big circle like King Arthur's knights did. There were "for" and "against" reasonings and the final voting resulted in "for" outnumbering both "against" and "ignore" ^_^. Belows are my arguments which develop into four aspects:

First, legally, there's NO obligations to make developed countries responsible for the world's poverty! Actually, if there were such an international law, it would be developed and agreed among rich countries who would not bind themselves into something that could be potentially troublesome to them!!

Historically, the development of rich countries was partly attained by exploiting the remaining bodies of the world, making these entities poorer and left behind. There was a time when Spanish and Portuguese ships kept coming to, mostly South, American and brought gold, silver, precious spicy,... back to Europe. There was a time when "the sun never set on the British Empire". There was a time when black slaves were brought to Europe, American to be sold and treated as animals. There was a time when the big closed China was divided like a cake by 8 western countries each of which had its own interests on the land of "the center of the world". There could be more, many more such examples to show how the development of some countries caused the poverty of the others. However, history is a sensitive issue. It's NOT really reasonable to ask current people in rich countries to be responsible for what their ancestors has done! It's also strange to me if someone said that I had to do some compensation because my grand-grand-grand-...-grand-grand-dad did something wrong. So, I'd not say that because of the events that happened in the past, developed countries HAVE to do something but because of those FACTS, they SHOULD think about doing something. Nevertheless, the discussion is about "should", not "have to".

(Source: http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/GlobalAffairs/)

My third argument comes from the view of humanity. There is a bundle of examples showing the inequality between the life of people in the western world and that of people in other area of the planet, especially in Africa. I did not collect facts and figures supporting this point but Justin had an extensive collection showing things like "the amount of money spent on perfume in 3 richest countries was enough to buy food for billion of starving people in Africa" or similar. As a human, it is really necessary to think about that, especially when you live very comfortably.

Finally, globalisation has been becoming an unavoidable trend. Investments are reaching to further corners of the world. Transportation is being expanded. Travellers are visitting places that they have never been to before. A stable and safe international environment is really important for all these purposes. And such an environment would be realised better if living standards were improved all around the world. Otherwise, environment has recently become a global interest: Forests are being cut pushing up the desertation, causing floods; global warming is melting ice in the two polars of the earth, increasing the sea level, threatening not only one country; etc. People in poor countries contribute a lot to destroying the environment but they are too busy seeking food so that they don't care about the surrounding trees and animals. However, they are not the only one who will be affected by the environmental consequences. Therefore, while helping poor countries get rid of the poverty, rich countries are also helping themselves.

So, 3/4 of my arguments lead to a "Yes" answer to the question raised in the title. Of course, how to handle the responsibilities is not simple and may make another piece of writing.