Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision
Author: Marlies Hesselman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317209893

There is a clear overlap between securing socio-economic human rights for all persons and arranging adequate access to essential public services across society. Both are necessary to realise thriving, inclusive societies, with adequate living standards for all, based on human dignity. This edited volume brings together the two topics for the first time. In particular, it identifies the common challenges for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights realisation, and it explores how socio-economic rights law can be harnessed to reinforce better access to services. An important aim of this book is to understand how international socio-economic human rights law and guideposts can be used and strengthened to improve access to services, and assess socio-economic legal and policy decisions. The volume includes contributions from different continents, on a range of different services, and engages with the realities of different regulatory settings. After an introduction that sets out the most important challenges for universal access to services – including sufficient resources mobilisation, private actor involvement and regulation, or the need for improved checks and balances – the book goes on to discuss current issues in services provision and socio-economic rights, as well as explores the place and role of private business actors in the provision of services. In particular, it assesses how the responsibility and accountability of such actors for human rights can be improved . The final part of the book narrows in on the under-explored human rights concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’, as essential prerequisites for better ‘checks and balances’. Overall, this volume presents a unique and powerful illustration of how socio-economic human rights law supports improved access to essential public services for all.

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision
Author: Marlies Hesselman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317209885

There is a clear overlap between securing socio-economic human rights for all persons and arranging adequate access to essential public services across society. Both are necessary to realise thriving, inclusive societies, with adequate living standards for all, based on human dignity. This edited volume brings together the two topics for the first time. In particular, it identifies the common challenges for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights realisation, and it explores how socio-economic rights law can be harnessed to reinforce better access to services. An important aim of this book is to understand how international socio-economic human rights law and guideposts can be used and strengthened to improve access to services, and assess socio-economic legal and policy decisions. The volume includes contributions from different continents, on a range of different services, and engages with the realities of different regulatory settings. After an introduction that sets out the most important challenges for universal access to services – including sufficient resources mobilisation, private actor involvement and regulation, or the need for improved checks and balances – the book goes on to discuss current issues in services provision and socio-economic rights, as well as explores the place and role of private business actors in the provision of services. In particular, it assesses how the responsibility and accountability of such actors for human rights can be improved . The final part of the book narrows in on the under-explored human rights concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’, as essential prerequisites for better ‘checks and balances’. Overall, this volume presents a unique and powerful illustration of how socio-economic human rights law supports improved access to essential public services for all.

Weak Courts, Strong Rights

Weak Courts, Strong Rights
Author: Mark Tushnet
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400828155

Unlike many other countries, the United States has few constitutional guarantees of social welfare rights such as income, housing, or healthcare. In part this is because many Americans believe that the courts cannot possibly enforce such guarantees. However, recent innovations in constitutional design in other countries suggest that such rights can be judicially enforced--not by increasing the power of the courts but by decreasing it. In Weak Courts, Strong Rights, Mark Tushnet uses a comparative legal perspective to show how creating weaker forms of judicial review may actually allow for stronger social welfare rights under American constitutional law. Under "strong-form" judicial review, as in the United States, judicial interpretations of the constitution are binding on other branches of government. In contrast, "weak-form" review allows the legislature and executive to reject constitutional rulings by the judiciary--as long as they do so publicly. Tushnet describes how weak-form review works in Great Britain and Canada and discusses the extent to which legislatures can be expected to enforce constitutional norms on their own. With that background, he turns to social welfare rights, explaining the connection between the "state action" or "horizontal effect" doctrine and the enforcement of social welfare rights. Tushnet then draws together the analysis of weak-form review and that of social welfare rights, explaining how weak-form review could be used to enforce those rights. He demonstrates that there is a clear judicial path--not an insurmountable judicial hurdle--to better enforcement of constitutional social welfare rights.

Judicial Review, Socio-Economic Rights and the Human Rights Act

Judicial Review, Socio-Economic Rights and the Human Rights Act
Author: Ellie Palmer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2007-08-31
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1847313760

In the United Kingdom during the past decade, individuals and groups have increasingly tested the extent to which principles of English administrative law can be used to gain entitlements to health and welfare services and priority for the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. One of the primary purposes of this book is to demonstrate the extent to which established boundaries of judicial intervention in socio-economic disputes have been altered by the extension of judicial powers in sections 3 and 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, and through the development of a jurisprudence of positive obligations in the European Convention on Human Rights 1950. Thus, the substantive focus of the book is on developments in the constitutional law of the United Kingdom. However, the book also addresses key issues of theoretical human rights, international and comparative constitutional law. Issues of justiciability in English administrative law have therefore been explored against a background of two factors: a growing acceptance of the need for balance in the protection in modern constitutional arrangements afforded to civil and political rights on the one hand and socio-economic rights on the other hand; and controversy as to whether courts could make a more effective contribution to the protection of socio-economic rights with the assistance of appropriately tailored constitutional provisions.

Key Policies for Addressing the Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities

Key Policies for Addressing the Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities
Author: Matthew Saunders
Publisher: World Health Organization
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2017-09-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9289052651

Evidence indicates that actions within four main themes (early child development fair employment and decent work social protection and the living environment) are likely to have the greatest impact on the social determinants of health and health inequities. A systematic search and analysis of recommendations and policy guidelines from intergovernmental organizations and international bodies identified practical policy options for action on social determinants within these four themes. Policy options focused on early childhood education and care; child poverty; investment strategies for an inclusive economy; active labour market programmes; working conditions; social cash transfers; affordable housing; and planning and regulatory mechanisms to improve air quality and mitigate climate change. Applying combinations of these policy options alongside effective governance for health equity should enable WHO European Region Member States to reduce health inequities and synergize efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Future of Economic and Social Rights

The Future of Economic and Social Rights
Author: Katharine G. Young
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 711
Release: 2019-04-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108418139

Captures significant transformations in the theory and practice of economic and social rights in constitutional and human rights law.

Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa

Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa
Author: Malcolm Langford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107021146

This book sets out to assess the role and impact of socio-economic strategies used by civil society actors in South Africa. Focusing on a range of socio-economic rights and national trends in law and political economy, the book's authors show how socio-economic rights have influenced the development of civil society discourse and action.

Economic and Social Justice

Economic and Social Justice
Author: David A. Shiman
Publisher: Amnesty International
Total Pages: 134
Release: 1999
Genre: Education
ISBN:

On December 10, 1998, the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The U.S. Constitution possesses many of the political and civil rights articulated in the UDHR. The UDHR, however, goes further than the U.S. Constitution, including many social and economic rights as well. This book addresses the social and economic rights found in Articles 16 and 22 through 27 of the UDHR that are generally not recognized as human rights in the United States. The book begins with a brief history of economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as an essay, in question and answer format, that introduces these rights. Although cultural rights are interrelated and of equal importance as economic and social rights, the book primarily addresses justice regarding economic and social problems. After an introduction, the book is divided into the following parts: (1) "Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Fundamentals"; (2) "Activities"; and (3) "Appendices." The nine activities in part 2 aim to help students further explore and learn about social and economic rights. The appendix contains human rights documents, a glossary of terms, a directory of resource organizations, and a bibliography of 80 web sites, publications and referrals to assist those eager to increase their understanding of, and/or move into action to address economic and social rights. (BT)

Socio-economic Rights

Socio-economic Rights
Author: Sandra Liebenberg
Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780702184802

Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, this scholarly work provides an in-depth and thorough analysis of the socio-economic rights jurisprudence of the newly democratic South Africa. The book explores how the judicial interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights can be more responsive to the conditions of systemic poverty and inequality characterising South African society. Based on meticulous research, the work marries legal analysis with perspectives from political philosophy and democratic theory.