GENERAL SUMMARY

The principal question raised and examined in this research is what normative justification can be provided for economic, social and cultural human rights (ESC rights) guaranteed under international law and how can or should this justification impact the State obligations emerging from these rights. The specific research questions needed to be answered in this regard were whether and in what manner human dignity provides a viable normative justification for economic, social and cultural human rights guaranteed under international law, and what concrete legal obligations of the State party flow from these rights and how these obligations are reflected in the jurisprudence of international human rights monitoring bodies from across jurisdictions. This also implied the question concerning the kind of legal obligations the State bears towards the vulnerable persons within its jurisdiction. These questions are born out of the current limitations and lack of substantive progress in both the academic debate and practical enforcement of ESC rights. This study has accordingly examined in detail the nature, justification and scope of the State obligations flowing from ESC rights enshrined in international law.

To this end, the study had first examined the different conceptions of human rights and their implications on ESC rights as human rights. It then undertook a brief assessment of the existing major human rights theories. Next it analysed in detail if and in what sense the principle of human dignity can and should be considered as the normative foundation of ESC rights and, finally, analysed the concrete State's legal obligations flowing from these rights. The research background, questions, objectives, methods and the structure of the dissertation are provided in detail in the Chapter one of the study.

Addressing the above research questions required the step-by-step development of a chain of arguments. The first step was a careful re-examination of how different existing conceptions of the idea of human rights have negatively impacted the ESC rights regime in general. It has shown the difficulties in justifying the human rights status of ESC rights within the existing dominant conceptions of human rights.