(Re)positioning socio-economic rights as real rights: a response to sceptics.

Abstract

In place of a unitary international bill of rights, there are two international covenants. This has given rise to the misleading impression that some rights may be less important than other rights and that certain rights are justiciable while others are statements of political principle. This paper tries to respond to the critics of socio-economic rights by (re)-addressing the concerns raised and re-asserting the indivisibility and inter-dependence of human rights across regions and societies. Specifically, this paper addresses issues of justiciability, lack of minimum standards, resource constraint, monitoring and implementation.