This chapter provides a critical analysis of some of the difficulties experienced in attempting to promote the development of universal social and economic rights. Drawing on the historical development of concepts of socio-economic rights in nation-states and then in international human rights mechanisms, it discusses the importance of ideology, human agency and power. It also discusses contemporary attempts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other campaigning organisations to promote the recognition and realisation of universal socio-economic rights.

Socio-economic rights are human rights that generally refer to social and economic conditions accepted as necessary for individuals and groups to live sustainably in dignity and freedom within society. These rights have a dual function. They are means for livelihood and they are ends – pillars of human dignity. As happens with most freedoms, these rights have reinforcing connections too (Sen, 1999: 54– 86). They include the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to work and related rights, and the right to social security. These rights are recognised and protected through a network of legal instruments, which create an obligation to respect, protect, facilitate and fulfil them, and to take progressive measures to secure their recognition and observance. An essential aspect of these rights comes from the duty of international cooperation as recognised in Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations (Eide et al, 1995).

This has been embedded to varying degrees in international and regional legal systems since the signing of the Charter on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco. The universal sources of social and economic rights include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1963); the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966);