The west, economic and social rights, and the global human rights regime: Setting the record straight

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 29, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 908-949

  Whelan, Daniel J ^a   Donnelly, Jack ^b  

^a HENDRIX COLLEGE   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF DENVER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HUMAN RIGHTS; POST-WAR; REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT; STATE BUILDING; WELFARE IMPACT;

EURASIA; EUROPE;

EID: 36348932100     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2007.0050     Document Type: Article

References (204)

1. Sections 3, 8, 10, 14 draw on material that also appears in Jack Donnelly, The West and Economic Rights, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS: CONCEPTUAL, MEASUREMENT, AND POLICY ISSUES (Shareen Hertel & Lanse Minkler eds., 2007).
2. Adamantia Pollis, Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through a State Prism, 18 HUM. RTS. Q. 316, 318 (1996).
3. Chandra Muzaffar, From Human Rights to Human Dignity, in DEBATING HUMAN RIGHTS: CRITICAL ESSAYS FROM THE UNITED STATES AND ASIA 29 (Peter Van Ness ed., 1999).
4. Compare with Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab, Introduction, in HUMAN RIGHTS: CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE xiii (Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab eds., 1979);
5. John T. Wright, Human Rights in the West: Political Liberties and the Rule of Law, in id. at 19;
6. J. Bryan Hehir, Human Rights from a Theological and Ethical Perspective, in THE MORAL IMPERATIVES OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A WORLD SURVEY 9 (Kenneth W. Thompson ed., 1980);
7. Charles P. Henry, Introduction: On Building a Human Rights Culture, in INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE xix (Kenneth W. Hunter & Timothy C. Mack eds., 1996);
8. WILLIAM FELICE, THE GLOBAL NEW DEAL: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN WORLD POLITICS 7 (2003);
9. Pierre de Senarclens, The Politics of Human Rights, in THE GLOBALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 141 (Jean-Marc Coicaud, Michael W. Doyle & Anne-Marie Gardner eds., 2003);
10. Jennifer Prah Ruger, Toward a Theory of a Right to Health: Capability and Incompletely Theorized Agreements, 18 YALE J. L. & HUM. 273, 282 (2006).
11. On the three generations theory, see Karel Vasak, Pour une troisième génération des droits de l'homme, in STUDIES AND ESSAYS ON INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND RED CROSS PRINCIPLES IN HONOUR OF JEAN PICTET 837 (Christophe Swinarski ed., 1984);
12. Stephen P. Marks, Emerging Human Rights: A New Generation for the 1980s?, 33 RUTGERS L. REV. 435 (1981);
13. Cees Flinterman, Three Generations of Human Rights, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN A PLURALIST WORLD: INDIVIDUALS AND COLLECTIVITIES 75 (Jan Berting et al. eds., 1990);
14. Karel Vasak, Les différentes catégories des droits de l'homme, in LES DIMENSIONS UNIVERSELLES DES DROITS DE L'HOMME (A. Lapeyre, F. de Tinguy, & Karel Vasak eds, 1991);
15. KEBA MBAYE, LES DROITS DE L'HOMME EN AFRIQUE 47-48 (2d ed. 2002) (1992);
16. RHONA K. M. SMITH, TEXTBOOK ON INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS 46-47 (2003);
17. CHRISTIAN TOMUSCHAT, HUMAN RIGHTS: BETWEEN IDEALISM AND REALISM, at ch. 3 (2003);
18. MICHELINE ISHAY, THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS: FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE GLOBALIZATION ERA 10-11, (2004).
19. For an extended critique, see Jack Donnelly, Third Generation Rights, in PEOPLES AND MINORITIES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 125-31 (Catherine Brölmann, René Lefeber & Marjoleine Zieck eds., 1993);
20. Hector Gros Espiell, The Evolving Concept of Human Rights: Western, Socialist and Third World Approaches, in HUMAN RIGHTS: THIRTY YEARS AFTER THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION 41 (B. G. Ramcharan ed., 1979);
21. Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights in Liberal, Socialist, and Third World Perspective, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE WORLD COMMUNITY: ISSUES AND ACTION 146 (Richard P. Claude & Burns H. Weston eds., 1992). These are the classic statements of the three worlds argument. To appreciate the utter lack of historical basis of such claims, consider simply the famous triads of Locke, Jefferson, and the French Revolution: life, liberty, and property; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and liberty, equality, fraternity.
22. Dianne Otto, Defending Women's Economic and Social Rights: Some Thoughts on Indivisibility and a New Standard of Equality, in GIVING MEANING TO ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL RIGHTS 52, 55 (Isfahan Merali & Valerie Oosterveld eds., 2001);
23. FELICE, supra note 3, at 7;
24. TONY EVANS, THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE 57, 60-61 (2d ed. 2005).
25. Noam Chomsky, The United States and the Challenge of Relativity, in HUMAN RIGHTS FIFTY YEARS ON: A REAPPRAISAL 24, 32 (Tony Evans ed., 1998).
26. ANTONIO CASSESSE, HUMAN RIGHTS IN A CHANGING WORLD 35 (1990).
27. SAMUEL GRAFTON, ALL OUT! HOW DEMOCRACY WILL DEFEND AMERICA; BASED ON THE FRENCH FAILURE, THE ENGLISH STAND, AND THE AMERICAN PROGRAM 60 (1940),
28. quoted in ELIZABETH BORGWARDT, A NEW DEAL FOR THE WORLD: AMERICA'S VISION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 49 (2005).
29. THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, VOL. XXV: ACTIVITIES 1940-1944, SHAPING THE POST-WAR WORLD: THE CLEARING UNION 11 (Donald Moggridge, ed., 1980).
30. Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1941, in PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT 672 (1941).
31. Id. at 671.
32. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, VOL. 10, at 315 (1950).
33. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, POSTWAR FOREIGN POLICY PREPARATION : 1939-1945, at 63 (1949).
34. Id. at 93.
35. Cordell Hull, The War and Human Freedom: Radio Address Delivered on July 23, 1942, 7 U. S. DEPT. OF STATE BULL. 161 (1942),
36. reprinted in 382 INI'L CONCILIATION 381, 388-89 (1942).
37. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, POSTWAR FOREIGN POLICY PREPARATION , supra note 13, at 115.
38. RUTH B. RUSSELL, A HISTORY OF THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES 1940-1945, at 327 (1958).
39. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, POSTWAR FOREIGN POLICY PREPARATION , supra note 13, at 483.
40. ALISON DUNDES RENTELN, INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS: UNIVERSALISM VERSUS RELATIVISM 30 (1990).
41. Compare Adamantia Pollis & Peter Schwab, Human Rights: A Western Construct with Limited Applicability, in HUMAN RIGHTS: CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE, supra note 3, at 5;
42. Chisanga Puta-Chekwe & Nora Flood, From Division to Integration: Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as Basic Human Rights, in GIVING MEANING TO ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL RIGHTS, supra note 5, at 39;
43. Bonaventura de Sousa Santos, Toward a Multicultural Conception of Human Rights, in MORAL IMPERIALISM: A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY 39, 45 (Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol ed., 2002);
44. EVANS, THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, supra note 5, at 104.
45. There was almost no debate over the order of the listing of rights in the Universal Declaration. JOHANNES MORSINK, THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: ORIGINS, DRAFTING, AND INTENT 232 (1999).
46. Ruth Gavison, On the Relationship between Civil and Political Rights, and Social and Economic Rights, in THE GLOBALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, supra note 3, at 54 n.46.
47. MBAYE, supra note 4, at 45 [authors' translation].
48. LOUIS HENIKIN, INTERNATIONAL LAW: POLITICS AND VALUES 191 (1995).
49. Bard-Anders Andreassen, Article 22, in THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMMENTARY 319, 333 (Asbjørn Eide, et a]. eds., 1992);
50. compare MORSINK, supra note 20, at 222-30.
51. The same is true of the passage from Antonio Cassesse quoted in the introduction. We have not, however, ransacked the literature for obscure passages by lightweight scholars. Henkin and Cassese in particular rank at or near the top of any list of postwar American and Italian international legal scholars.
52. TONY EVANS, US HEGEMONY AND THE PROJECT OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS 77 (1996).
53. Ashlid Samnoy, The Origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMMON STANDARD OF ACHIEVEMENT 3, 11 (Gudmundur Alfredsson & Asbjørn Eide eds., 1999).
54. Compare Asbjørn Eide, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights in ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: A TEXTBOOK 28-29 (Asbjørn Eide, Catarina Krause & Alan Rosas eds., 1995);
55. Asbjørn Eide & Wenche Barth Eide, Article 25, in THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMMON STANDARD OF ACHIEVEMENT , supra note 27, at 528.
56. In the General Assembly, human rights were assigned to the Third (Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian) Committee.
57. Opening Statements, Summary Record of Meetings, Commission on Human Rights of the Economic and Social Council, at 2, U.N. Doc. E/HR/6 (1946).
58. MORSINK, supra note 20;
59. ASHILD SAMNRY, HUMAN RIGHTS AS INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS: THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 1945-1948 (1993).
60. MARC AGI, RENÉ CASSIN, PRIX NOBEL DE LA PAIX (1887-1976):PÈRE DE LA DÉCLARATION UNIVERSELLE DES DROITS DE L'HOMME 255-62, 358-65 (1998).
61. MBAYE, supra note 4, at 41 [authors' translation].
62. Susan Koshy, From Cold War to Trade War: Neocolonialism and Human Rights, 58 Soc. TEXT 1, 6 (1999).
63. Again, the passages quoted to the contrary offer no supporting evidence. It is true that [t]he United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Lebanon were more or less ambivalent about a detailed enumeration of these rights, and preferred to include them in general terms." Ashlid Samnoy, The Origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMMON STANDARD OF ACHIEVEMENT supra note 27, at 12.
64. Compare Andreassen, supra note 24, at 335;
65. TOMUSCHAT, supra note 4, at 28-29. But this had nothing to do with either principled or practical opposition to economic and social rights. For example, Australia also strongly supported including the general statement of the importance of economic, social, and cultural rights, quoted above, in what became Article 22.
66. Andreassen, supra note 24, at 339,
67. citing Summary Record of the Sixty-Fifth Meeting, Comm'n on Human Rights, UN Economic and Social Council, 3rd Sess., U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/ SR.65 (24 June 1948).
68. More generally, see Andreassen, supra note 24, at 321, 337-45, 351-52;
69. MORSINK, supra note 20, at 222-30, 334. We return to the underlying issue of "justiciability" in Section 10.
70. JOHN P. HUMPHREY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS: A GREAT ADVENTURE 32 (1984).
71. See, e.g., WORLD CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, THE WORLD'S DESTINY AND THE UNITED STATES: A CONFERENCE OF EXPERTS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (1941);
72. Universities Committee on Post-War International Problems, Summaries of Reports of Cooperating Groups, Problem X - The Protection by international Action of the Freedom of the Individual within the State, 405 INT'L CONCILIATION 711 (1944);
73. COMMISSION TO STUDY THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE, BUILDING PEACE: REPORTS OF fHE COMMISSION TO STUDY THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE, 1939-1972 (1973);
74. Quincy Wright, Human Rights and the World Order, 389 INT'L CONCILIATION 238 (1943).
75. On pre-war precursors, see Jan Herman Burgers, The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth Century, 14 HUM. RTS. Q. 447 (1992).
76. Louis B. Sohn, How American International Lawyers Prepared for the San Francisco Bill of Rights, 89 AM. J. INT'L L. 540, 548 (1995).
77. Committee of Advisors on Essential Human Rights, American Law Institute, Statement of Essential Human Rights, 243 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 18, 25 (1946).
78. Sohn, supra note 37, at 549.
79. William Draper Lewis, Human Rights in England and the United States, 243 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 60, 66 (1946).
80. C. Wilfred Jenks, The Five Economic and Social Rights, 243 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 40, 45 (1946).
81. Charles E. Merriam, The Content of an International Bill of Rights, 243 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 11, 13-14 (1946).
82. John R. Ellingston, The Right to Work, 243 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 27, 28 (1946).
83. Peter Flora & Arnold J. Heidenheimer, The Historical Core and Changing Boundaries of the Welfare State, in THE DEVELOPMENT OF WELFARE STATES IN EUROPE AND AMERICA 17, 23 (Peter Flora & Arnold J. Heidenheimer eds., 1981).
84. Stein Kuhnle, Welfare and the Quality of Life, in NORDIC DEMOCRACY: IDEAS, ISSUES, AND INSTITUTIONS IN POLITICS, ECONOMY, EDUCATION, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS OF DENMARK, FINLAND, ICELAND, NORWAY, AND SWEDEN 399, 411 (Eric Allardt, et al. eds., 1981).
85. Between the turn of century and end of World War II, social expenditures increased from 30 to 62 percent of budget in Germany, 20 to 47 percent in UK, and 30 to 53 percent in Sweden. Peter Flora & Jens Alber, Modernization, Democratization, and the Development of Welfare States in Western Europe, in THE DEVELOPMENT OF WELFARE STATES IN EUROPE AND AMERICA, supra note 44, 49-50.
86. Even the term dates from the early 1940s, being popularized in English in the 1942 Beveridge Report. (It did not enter the Oxford English Dictionary until 1955.) The first use of the term in German seems to be in 1932. Flora & Heidenheimer, The Historical Core and Changing Boundaries of the Welfare State, supra note 44, at 33 n.4.
87. One should not, however, overstate "classical" liberal opposition to state intervention to support the market and deal with social externalities and inequities. See e.g., Jacob Viner, Adam Smith and Laissez Faire, 35 J. POL. ECON. 198 (1927);
88. R. L. Crouch, Laissez-Faire in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Myth or Reality?, 35 MANCHESTER SCHOOL ECON. & SOC. STUD. 199 (1967).
89. MAURICE BRUCE, THE COMING OF THE WELFARE STATE 2, 15 (1961).
90. Id. at viii.
91. Id. at 76.
92. ISHAY, supra note 4, at ch. 3, offers a lively, although ultimately indefensible, version of this argument.
93. For a useful brief summary of the eclectic origins of economic and social rights, see Richard L. Siegel, Socioeconomic Human Rights: Past and Future, 7 HUM. RTS. Q. 255, 260-65 (1985).
94. Economic rights have been central to British liberalism at least since Locke. The nineteenth century struggle for worker's rights was as much a struggle of radical liberals as of socialists. For example, E. P. Thompson's (1966) magisterial history of the English working class movement begins with a hundred pages on Tom Paine. In the early years of the twentieth century "most working men were Liberals.... Socialists were rare and the trade unions [were] mainly concerned with limited practical aims." BRUCE, supra note 49, at 139-40. By World War II, the libertarian laissez-faire strand of liberalism was a distinctly minority view, even among self-professed liberals, that had remarkably little actual political impact. See also Section 15 below at note 132.
95. CLAIRE PALLEY, THE UNITED KINGDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS 58 (1991).
96. See generally ROBERT E. GOODIN, BRUCE HEADLEY, RUUD MUFFELS, & HENK-JAN DIRVEN, THE REAL WORLDS OF WELFARE CAPITALISM (1999).
97. Quoted in CASS R. SUNSTEIN, THE SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS: FDR's UNFINISHED REVOLUTION AND WHY WE NEED IT MORE THAN EVER 65 (2004).
98. Quoted in id. at 75.
99. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, VOL. 5, at 231 (1938).
100. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, VOL. 13, at 41 (1950).
101. Id.
102. Id. at 372.
103. One of many public-works initiatives of Roosevelt's New Deal, the NRPB was a small executive group headed by the President's uncle (Frederic A. Delano), and staffed by a small group of academic and government experts. It is best known for its Reports issued in 1942 and 1943. It was abolished by a Republican Congress in 1944.
104. UNITED STATES NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT REPORT FOR 1942, at 3 (1942).
105. UNITED STATES NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT REPORT FOR 1943: PART I. POST-WAR PLAN AND PROGRAM 2 (1943).
106. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, VOL. 12, at 122 (1950).
107. ROOSEVELT, PUBLIC PAPERS AND ADDRESSES, VOL. 5, supra note 58, at 753, 755.
108. Id. at 754.
109. Id.
110. SUNSTEIN, supra note 56, at 66.
111. BORGWARDT, supra note 8.
112. Puta-Chekwe & Flood, supra note 19, at 39, 41.
113. SHELLEY WRIGHT, INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS, DECOLONISATION AND GLOBALISATION: BECOMING HUMAN 21 (2001).
114. MATTHEW C. R. CRAVEN, THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: A PERSPECTIVE ON ITS DEVELOPMENT 9 (1995);
115. compare Otto, supra note 5, at 54-55;
116. Helen Stacy, International Human Rights in a Fragmenting World, in HUMAN RIGHTS WITH MODESTY: THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALISM 161, 164 (András Sajó ed., 2004).
117. Report to the Economic and Social Council on the Work of the Sixth Session of the Commission, Supplement #5, Comm'n on Human Rights, ESCOR, 11th Sess., U.N. Doc. E/1681 (1950).
118. The original draft Covenant had eighteen articles covering basic civil rights. The Soviet Union consistently put forth drafts covering a whole range of economic, social, and political rights but this "package" was consistently rejected (see note 81 below). The draft of the ICCPR submitted to the Third Committee in 1954 did not include political rights.
119. Report to the Economic and Social Council on the Work of the Sixth Session of the Commission, Supplement #5, supra note 74, at 6.
120. Summary Reports of the 297th, 298th, and 299th Meetings of the Third Committee, U.N. GAOR, 5th Sess., U.N. Doc.s A/C.3/SR.297-299 (30 Oct. 1950).
121. Summary report of the 318th Meeting of the Third Committee, U.N. GAOR, 5th Sess., U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.318, 287 (17 Nov. 1950).
122. Summary Reports of the 297th, 298th, and 299th Meetings, supra note 77.
123. After the decision to draft economic and social rights was made, the Soviets continually peddled a "package" of economic, social, and political rights to the Commission and the Third Committee. The Soviet language was often far too specific and narrow for the goal of building consensus on what should be included as a "right." The article on trade unions, for example, contained thirteen sub-paragraphs of such a detailed nature that it was rejected easily.
124. Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Seventh Session, 13 U.N. ESCOR, Supp. 9, at 8-11, U.N. Doc. E/1922 (1951).
125. ON THE EDGE OF GREATNESS: THE DIARIES OF JOHN HUMPHREY, FIRST DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED NATIONS DIVISION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, VOL. 2, 1950-1951, at 202 (A.J. Hobbins ed., 1996).
126. Summary Report of the 248th Meeting, Comm'n on Human Rights, ESCOR, 7th Sess., U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/SR.248, 6 (10 July 1951).
127. HUMPHREY, supra note 35, at 144.
128. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES: 1951, VOL. II, THE UNITED NATIONS; THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, 741 (1979).
129. Id. at 742.
130. Id. at 735, 736.
131. Id. at 738-39.
132. Id. at 745.
133. Id. at 747, 748.
134. Id. at 753.
135. Id.
136. Alexandre Berenstein, Economic and Social Rights: Their Inclusion in the European Convention on Human Rights. Problems of Formulation and Interpretation, 2 HUM. RTS. L. J. 257, 261 (1982).
137. CRAVEN, supra note 73, at 352.
138. SUNSTEIN, supra note 56, at ch. 8.
139. "Non-justiciable," however, would be a poor choice. It is a residual, rather than a defined, category, and it draws our attention to an absence (of justiciability) rather than what is positively done by such rights.
140. It is also worth noting that the Covenants do not appeal to any alleged substantive distinction between positive and negative rights. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted 19 Dec. 1966, G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), U.N. GAOR, 21st Sess., Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force 23 Mar. 1976) (ICCPR);
141. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted 19 Dec. 1966, G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), U.N. GAOR, 21st Sess., Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 U.N.T.S. 3 (entered into force 3 Jan. 1976) (ICESCR).
142. Summary Report of the 248th Meeting, supra note 83.
143. Summary Report of the 360th Meeting of the Third Committee, U.N. GAOR, 6th Sess., U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.360, 78 (5 Dec. 1951).
144. JAMES FREDERICK GREEN, THE UNITED NATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS 38 (1956).
145. Israel unsuccessfully advanced this view in the Third Committee in 1951. Summary Report of the 360th Meeting, supra note 99, at 82.
146. András Sajó, Rights in Post-Communism, in WESTERN RIGHTS? POST-COMMUNIST APPLICATION 141-42 (András Sajó ed., 1996);
147. compare Rein A. Myullerson, Socialism and Human Rights, in THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION IN A CHANGING WORLD: FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE FOUR FREEDOMS ADDRESS, ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF TORKEL OPSAHL 13-16 (Asbjørn Eide & Jan Helgesen eds., 1991).
148. The Open-Ended Working Group on an optional Protocol to the ICESCR is still wrangling with many of the same issues as in the original debates in 1950-1952, although concerns about justiciability are now much less widely shared. See, e.g., Elements for an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Open-ended Working Group, Comm'n on Human Rights, ESCOR, 62nd Sess., U.N. Doc. UCN.4/2006/WG.23/2 (30 Nov. 2005);
149. Report of the Open-ended Working group to Consider Options Regarding the Elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR on its Third Session, Comm'n on Human Rights, UN Economic and Social Council, 62nd Sess., U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2006/47 (14 Mar. 2006).
150. Compare Jackbeth K. Mapulanga-Hulston, Examining the Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 6 INT'L J. HUM. RTS. 29 (2002);
151. Michael J. Dennis & David P. Stewart, Justiciability of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: Should There Be an International Complaints Mechanism to Adjudicate the Rights to Food, Water, Housing, and Health? 98 AM. J. INT'L L. 462 (2004).
152. Even more problematic is the name "Human Rights Committee" for a body that deals only with civil and political rights. This "affront" to economic, social, and cultural rights, however, cannot be blamed on the West. The name was an artifact of the original, single draft Covenant that was never subject to serious debate.
153. Philip Alston, Out of the Abyss: The Challenges Confronting the New UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 9 HUM. RTS. Q. 332, 339 (1987).
154. Philip Alston, The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in THE UNITED NATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL 473, 478, (Philip Alston ed., 1992),
155. citing U.N. Doc. A/C.3/L.1360) (1966).
156. Alston, Out of the Abyss, supra note 105, at 348-49.
157. T. H. MARSHALL, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL CLASS AND OTHER ESSAYS (1950);
158. T. H. MARSHALL, THE RIGHT TO WELFARE AND OTHER ESSAYS (1981).
159. Simon Deakin, Social Rights in a Globalized Economy, in LABOUR RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS 25, 35 (Philip Alston ed., 2005).
160. WILLIAM H. BEVERIDGE, FULL EMPLOYMENT IN A FREE SOCIETY (1945) offers a powerful expression of this attitude.
161. DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD, FROM BRETTON WOODS To FULL EMPLOYMENT 19 (1945).
162. THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 1945-1965: TWENTY YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL MONETARY COOPERATION, VOLUME III: DOCUMENTS 131 (J. Keith Horsefield ed., 1969).
163. THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, supra note 9, at 380;
164. THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 1945-1965, supra note 112, at 85-86.
165. THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, supra note 9, at 27.
166. H. W. Singer, An Historical Perspective, in THE UN AND THE BRETTON WOODS INSTITUTIONS: NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 17 (Mahbub ul Haq, et al. eds., 1995).
167. Quoted in SUSAN GEORGE & FABRIZIO SABELLI, FAITH AND CREDIT: THE WORLD BANK'S SECULAR EMPIRE 30(1994).
168. THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 1945-1965, supra note 112, at 138.
169. OSKAR PIEST, TOWARD STABILITY OF WORLD ECONOMY: DEFENSE AND CRITICISM OF THE BRETTON WOODS AGREEMENTS 61 (1945).
170. G. John Ikenberry, A World Economy Restored: Expert Consensus and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement, 46 INT'L ORG. 289 (1992).
171. RICHARD N. GARDNER, STERLING-DOLLAR DIPLOMACY: ANGLO-AMERICAN COLLABORATION IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MULTILATERAL TRADE 109, 146 (1956).
172. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, PROPOSALS FOR EXPANSION OF WORLD TRADE AND EMPLOYMENT 9 (1945).
173. John Gerard Ruggie, International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order, 36 INT'L ORG. 379, 392-93 (1982).
174. Id. at 398.
175. HÉCTOR BARTOLOMEI DE LA CRUZ, GERALDO VON POTOBSKY & LEE SWEPSTON, THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION: THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS SYSTEM AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS 128 (1996).
176. For example, the unemployment convention (No. 2) dealt only with establishing and maintaining free public employment agencies.
177. For example, Convention No. 17 on workers' compensation for accidents, which was completed in 1925, was ratified by Sweden in 1926, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1927, and Spain in 1929. France did not ratify until 1948, the UK in 1949, Finland in 1950, and Germany in 1955. Denmark, Italy, Canada, and the United States have never ratified.
178. ERNST B. HAAS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL ACTION: THE CASE OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION (1970);
179. DE LA CRUZ, POTOBSKY, & SWEPSTON, supra note 124, at ch. 20-23.
180. Berenstein, supra note 93, at 265, quoting Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 838 ¶ 12 (1978).
181. Quoted in P. VAN DIJK & G. J. H. VAN HOOF, THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS 681 (1998).
182. The European Convention on Human Rights also includes the right to marry and found a family. Although this right appears in the lCCPR, supra note 97, it is probably best classified as a social right.
183. See generally, available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/ Treaties/Html/l39.htm.
184. For example, between 1970 and 1995, government spending as a percentage of GDP increased in the UK from 38.8 to 42.3 percent and social security transfers increased from 8.3 to 15.4 percent. And from 1980 to 1995, social expenditure increased from 18.3 to 22.5 percent of GDP. Comparable figures for the US are 31.6 to 34.3; 7.6 to 13.2; and 13.4 to 15.8. Brian Burgoon, Globalization and Welfare Compensation: Disentangling the Ties that Bind, 55 INT'L ORG. 509, 530, Tbl. 2 (2001).
185. The unweighted averages for the eighteen largest OECD countries for the expenditures in the preceding note are 33.5 to 46.7; 10.7 to 19.0; and 19.5 to 24.0.
186. Id.
187. In every one of those countries, total social expenditure rose between 1980 and 1995. Even more striking, spending on retirement benefits, health benefits, and family benefits increased in forty-two of fifty-four instances (three classes of benefits in eighteen separate countries).
188. Id at 531, Tbl. 3. The expansion of the welfare state continued right into the 1990s.
189. For a good recent discussion of NGO activity on economic and social rights, see Kenneth Roth, Defending Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Practical issues Faced by an international Human Rights Organization, 26 HUM. RTS. Q. 63 (2004);
190. Mary Robinson, Advancing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: The Way Forward, 26 HUM. RTS. Q. 866 (2004);
191. Leonard S. Rubenstein, How International Human Rights Organizations Can Advance Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Response to Kenneth Roth, 26 HUM. RTS. Q. 845 (2004);
192. Kenneth Roth, Response to Leonard S. Rubenstein, 26 HUM. RTS. Q. 873 (2004);
193. Katarina Tomaševski, Unasked Questions about Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights from the Experience of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education (1998-2004):
194. A Response to Kenneth Roth, Leonard S. Rubenstein, and Mary Robinson, 27 HUM. RTS. Q. 709 (2005).
195. Asmarom Legesse, Human Rights in African Political Culture, in THE MORAL IMPERATIVES OF HUMAN RIGHTS, supra note 3, at 123;
196. compare Makau Mutua, Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights, 42 HARV. INT'L L. J. 201, 207 (2001).
197. The Rawlsian idea of an overlapping consensus is useful here: different groups coming to agreement on a particular set of political and legal norms from (and despite) profoundly different worldviews and comprehensive religious and moral doctrines. See JOHN RAWLS, POLITICAL LIBERALISM, at xliii-xlv, 11-15, 133-76, 385-96 (1996);
198. John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS 16, 31-32 (1999).
199. For applications to contemporary understandings of human rights, see Heiner Bielefeldt, " Western" versus "Islamic" Human Rights Conceptions?: A Critique of Cultural Essentialism in the Discussion of Human Rights, 28 POLITICAL THEORY 90 (2000);
200. JACK DONNELLY, UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 40-41, 51-53 (2d ed. 2003);
201. Ashwani Kumar Peetush, Cultural Diversity Non-Western Communities, and Human Rights, 34 PHIL. FORUM 1 (2003).
202. On the complexities of the idea of universality (and relativity), see Jack Donnelly, The Relative Universality of Human Rights, 29 HUM. RTS. Q. 281 (2007).
203. ROBERT W. COX, APPROACHES TO WORLD ORDER 87 (1996).
204. In saying this, we take no position on the linkage between economic and social rights to the goals of economic and social development often expressed in the language of the "right to development," Whatever one's view on this issue, we simply insist that economic and social rights - and for that matter civil and political rights as well - have an intrinsic value and a distinctive contribution to national development policies that merits emphasis.