Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:26:06.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Needs-Based Approach to Social and Economic Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Shareen Hertel  and
Lanse Minkler
By
Wiktor Osiatyński
Shareen Hertel
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Lanse Minkler
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Wiktor Osiatyński
Affiliation:
University Professor Central European, University in Budapest
Get access

Summary

Social and economic rights are one of the most controversial issues in the theory and practice of rights. They are often referred to as the “rights of the second-generation” distinct from the “first-generation rights” that include civil liberties and political rights. However, the very category of social and economic rights is unclear and somewhat confused. Rights to own property and the freedom of enterprise are, in fact, basic freedoms rather than social rights: they empower an individual and limit the government's intrusion rather than suggest the government's benefits or regulation. Also a number of other social and economic rights resemble personal freedoms or political rights. It seems as if they were inserted into the category of “social and economic rights” primarily because there was no agreement on the immediate judicial enforcement of these rights.

However, even when we deal with social rights in a more narrow sense, we discover that they assume a very broad range of roles for the state. Free choice of employment and protection against unemployment (UDHR art. 23(1)) imply a protective role of the state. Many social rights call for a regulatory role of the state. Very few social rights demand direct provision of goods and services by the state. Finally, some social and economic rights deal with values and directives that can at best be the goal for social policy but they are to be implemented by nonstate actors or through international measures. There is much less confusion with the other categories of rights.

Type
Chapter
Information
Economic Rights
Conceptual, Measurement, and Policy Issues
 , pp. 56 - 75
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barry, Norman. 1990. Welfare. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Braybrooke, David. 1987. Meeting Needs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Two Concepts of Liberty. In Four Essays on Liberty, 118–172. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Christiansen, Drew. 1982. Basic Needs: Criterion for the Legitimacy of Development. In Human Rights in the Americas: The Struggle for Consensus, ed. Hennelly, Alfred and Langan, John, 245–88. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Copp, David. 1992. The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living: Justice, Autonomy, and the Basic Needs. In Economic Rights, ed. Frankel Paul, Ellen, Fred, D. Miller Jr., and Paul, Jeffrey, 231–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cranston, Maurice. 1973. What are Human Rights? New York: Taplinger.Google Scholar
Epstein, Richard A. 1987. The Uncertain Quest for Welfare Rights. In Constitutionalism and Rights, ed. Gary, C. Bryner and Noel, B. Reynolds, 33–62. Provo: Brigham Young University.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1973. Social Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1989. On the Nature and Value of Rights. In Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Morton, E. Winston. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. 1996. The Community of Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1991. Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Golding, Martin P. 1978. The Concept of Rights: A Historical Sketch. In Bioethics and Human Rights, ed. Elsie, L. Bandman and Bandman, Bertram, 44–50. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Harvey, Philip. 2002. Human Rights and Economic Policy Discourse: Taking Economic and Social Rights Seriously. Columbia Human Rights Law Review 33 (2): 363–471.Google Scholar
Hayden, Patrick. 2001. The Philosophy of Human Rights. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.Google Scholar
Hennelly, Alfred S. J. and Langan, Johan S. J., eds. 1982. Human Rights in the Americas: The Struggle for Consensus. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Henkin, Louis. 1981. Economic-Social Rights as “Rights”: A United States Perspective. Human Rights Law Journal 2 (3–4).Google Scholar
Hollenbach, David. 1982. Global Human Rights: An Interpretation of the Contemporary Catholic Understanding. In Human Rights in the Americas: The Struggle for Consensus, ed. Hennelly, Alfred and Langan, John, 9–24. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Stephen, and Cass, R. Sunstein. 1999. The Costs of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, opened for signature Dec. 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 16 at 49, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 U.N.T.S. 3.
Ishay, Micheline R. 1997. The Human Rights Reader. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jencks, Chrisopher. 2005. What Happened to Welfare? The New York Review of Books 52, no. 20 (December 15): 76–86.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. Capabilities and Human Rights. In The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Hayden, Patrick, 212–40. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.Google Scholar
Osiatyński, Wiktor. 1996. Social and Economic Rights in a New Constitution for Poland. In Western Rights? A Post-Communist Application, ed. Andraś Sajó, , 233–69. Boston: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Osiatyński, Wiktor. 2000. Constitutionalism, Democracy, Constitutional Culture. In Constitutional Cultures, ed. Wyrzykowski, Miroslaw, 151–8. Warsaw: Institute of Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Pigou, A. C. 1952. The Economics of Welfare. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pollis, Adamantia. 2000. A New Universalism. In Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities, ed. Pollis, Adamantia and Schwab, Peter, 9–30. Bolder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Sachs, Albie. 2005. The Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights: The Grootboom Case. In The Constitution in Private Relations: Expanding Constitutionalism, ed. Sajó, Andras and Uitz, Renate, 79–97. Utrecht: Eleven.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya Kumar. 2000. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Shue, Henry. 1980. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 2004. The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Tesón, Fernando R. 2001. International Human Rights and Cultural Relativism. In The Philosophy of Human Rights, Patrick Hayden, 379–396. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.Google Scholar
Dijk, Pieter, and Godefridus, J. H. van Hoof. 1990. Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights. Boston: Kluwer Law and Taxation.Google Scholar
Wieruszewski, Roman. 1998. The Evolution of the Socialist Concept of Human Rights. SIM Newsletter 1: 27–37.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×