INTRODUCTION

A common objection to the full recognition of social, economic and cultural (socio-economic) rights is the difficulty of crafting meaningful remedies. A received remedial tradition suggests that political and civil rights can be fairly easily enforced by backwards looking compensatory remedies, such as damages for aggrieved individuals. Such remedies lie within the core jurisdiction of domestic courts and often mimic the remedial process and aims of private law. In contrast, socio-economic rights may require more complex remedies such as declarations or injunctions that invite or require positive governmental action. They also raise difficult tensions between achieving corrective justice for the individuals before the court as opposed to distributive justice for larger groups not before the court. In addition, there are also tensions between ordering compensation for past violations and ensuring compliance in the future, with related tensions between achieving instant remedies that correct discrete violations as opposed to the commencement of a much more drawn out and uncertain process of systemic reform. The complex and uncertain enforcement process that is posited for socio-economic rights seems to be a better fit for the more political enforcement processes of international than domestic law. International law relies on persuasion and dialogue while domestic law employs a monological and coercive process to enforce rights, especially with negative civil and political rights.