The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights

The Oxford Handbook of
Economic and Social Rights

Malcolm Langford & Katharine G. Young, editors

Now rolling out online

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights examines the socio-economic dimensions of human rights from philosophical, historical, social scientific, and legal perspectives. Part I presents contrasting theories on the nature and justification of such rights, drawing on moral, political and critical schools of thought, and their implications for democracy, equality, and global justice. Part II collects historical accounts of the emergence, mobilisation, and appropriation of economic and social rights, from pre-statist human rights history to the postwar international order, traversing decolonization, demands for social citizenship, and the distinct regional trajectories in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Part III provides an account of the enmeshment of these rights in political debates and institutions, tracing shifts in economic development and international relations, competing social welfare state and neoliberal models, and processes of constitutionalization and judicialization. Part IV examines the significant developments in national and international law and the legalization of economic and social rights, including doctrines of proportionality and reasonableness and the recent rise in accountability mechanisms, innovative remedies, and extraterritorial obligations. Part V analyzes selected rights including social security, health, education, labour, food, water, sanitation, housing and healthy environment. It also addresses the economic and social rights of indigenous peoples, children and persons with disability, and their gender dimensions. Part VI explores the effects of large-scale trends on rights protection and conceptualization, including development goals, climate change, technology, urbanization and migration. With its cross-disciplinary breadth, the Handbook maps the plural and systematic shifts underway in rights theory and practice.

Keywords

economic and social rights – socio-economic rights – theory of human rights – human rights and development – human rights and political economy – constitutionalization – social welfare – human rights and equality – human rights law – history of human rights

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Malcolm Langford & Katharine G. Young

PART I. THEORIES OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS

2. Moral Grounds for Economic and Social Rights

James Nickel, University of Miami

3. Justice and Economic and Social Rights

Jeremy Waldron, New York University

4. Capabilities and Resources

Elizabeth S. Anderson, University of Michigan

5. Obligations and Economic and Social Rights

Amartya Sen, Harvard University

6. Social Rights and Social Relations

Kimberley Brownlee, University of British Columbia

12. The Long History of Economic and Social Rights

Charles Walton, University of Warwick

13. Social Citizenship and Economic and Social Rights

Julia Moses, University of Sheffield

17. Constitutional Debates and Courts in Central and Eastern Europe

Adam Ploszka, University of Warsaw, Poland

18. Economic and Social Rights in South Asia

Rehan Abeyratne, University of Hong Kong

19. TWAIL and Economic and Social Rights

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, MIT

PART III. POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND INSTITUTIONS

20. Structural Transformation and Ecomonic and Social Rights

Charles Gore, ex-UNCTAD, Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Glasgow

21. International Relations and Economic and Social Rights

Shareen Hertel, University of Connecticut

22. Experimentalism and Economic and Social Rights

Charles Sabel, Columbia Law School

23. Behaviourally Informed Economic and Social Rights

Varun Gauri, Princeton/Brookings

24. Constitutionalisation of Economic and Social Rights

Malcolm Langford, University of Oslo

25.Legal Mobilisation and Economic and Social Rights

Siri Gloppen, University of Bergen and Paola Bergallo, University of Torcuato Di Tella

26. The Politics of Judicial Impact in Social and Economic Rights Cases

Dan Brinks and Sandra Botero, University of Texas

27. Pandemics and Economic and Social Rights

Jeff King, University College London

28. Fourth Branch Institutions and Economic and Social Rights: Lessons from Africa

Victoria Miyandazi, University of St. Andrews

PART IV. DEVELOPMENTS IN LAW

29. Legal Standards and Doctrines

Malcolm Langford, University of Oslo and Katharine Young, Boston College

30. Defensive Social Rights

Rosalind Dixon, University of NSW and David Landau, Florida State University

31. Proportionality Analysis and Economic and Social Rights

Carlos Bernal Pulido, Constitutional Court of Colombia

32. Reasonableness Review

Sandra Liebenberg, Stellenbosch University

33. Constitutional Law, Private Law, and Economic and Social Rights

Mark Tushnet, Harvard University

34. Queues and Rights

Katharine Young, Boston College

35. Corporate Responsibility and Economic and Social Rights

Surya Deva, Macquarie University

36. Remedies and Accountability for Economic and Social Rights

Kent Roach, University of Toronto

37.Extra-Territorial Obligations and Economic and Social Rights

Helen Duffy, Leiden University

38.International Mechanisms

Vivek Bhatt, Edinburgh and Jacqueline Mowbray, University of Sydney

39. Regional Mechanisms

Danwood Chirwa, University of Cape Town & Desmond Osaretin Oriakhogba, University of Venda, South Africa

PART V. SELECTED RIGHTS

40. The Right to Social Security

Beth Goldblatt, University of Technology, Sydney

41. The Right to Health: Reclaiming Imperatives of Democratic Justification

Alicia Yamin, Harvard University, and Tara Boghosian, Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP

42. The Right to Education

Gaurav Mukherjee, Central European University

43. Labour Rights

Virginia Mantouvalou, University College London

44. The Right to Food

Aeyal Gross and Tamar Luster, Tel Aviv University

45. The Rights to Water and Sanitation

Meg Satterthwaite, New York University Law School

46. Housing as a Right

Jessie Hohmann, University of Technology Sydney

47. Engendering Socio-economic Rights: How Far Have We Come?

Sandra Fredman, Oxford University

48. Paradigms of Disability Rights

Michael Stein, Harvard University

49. Children and Economic and Social Rights

John Tobin, Melbourne Law School

50.Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Kristin Carpenter, Colorado, and Angela Riley, UCLA

51. Economic and Social Rights and the Environment

Erin Daly and James May, Delaware Law School, Widener University

PART VI. MEGA-TRENDS

52. Development Goals and Economic and Social Rights

Dan Banik and Malcolm Langford, University of Oslo

See further: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197550021.001.0001