Are Economic and Social Rights Genuine Human Rights

The argument has always been that economic and civil rights are not justiciable and that they can only be progressively realized while civil and political rights are justiciable and immediately enforceable. Based on these factors, some people have even argued that economic and social rights are not genuine human rights. This is a pure misconception majorly due to the indivisibility of human rights as there is overwhelming empirical evidence suggesting a strong correlation between the denial of social and economic rights and lack of enjoyment of political and civil rights. The Universal Declaration came into effect in 1948 following the end of the Second World War where there had been massive human rights violations especially from the Nazi regime in Germany (Chong, 2009).

Thus the international human rights emerged to overcome the threats that were posed by the oppressive political and economic systems on the human dignity. For example, the freedom of movement and right to life are guaranteed without being subjected to the actions of the government. However, social and economic rights are only provided for specific categories of citizens and heavily rely on the material resources provided by the state. Social and economic rights imply that an individual has a right to impose on the state an obligation to supply all the necessary resources so that the individual can enjoy these rights. On the contrary, political and civil rights entail an individual claiming freedom from the government intervention. Furthermore, economic and social rights are enjoyed collectively unlike the political and civil rights which are enjoyed individually.

For instance, consider examples of a “genuine” human right: the freedom of worship and the right to privacy. One may argue that the right to worship is a “genuine” human right because one can go to a court and demand to be given an immediate right to worship. Similarly, another person can demand an immediate right to privacy from a court of law. In these cases, the freedom to worship and privacy are both justiciable and immediately enforceable. However, according to Fagan, (2009), ones right to worship can possibly and in this case should be constraint by other person’s right to privacy. Note that many human rights activists will argue that it is better for the court to progressively implement human rights than not implementing them at all.

The other reason had been that economic and social rights require a considerably higher level of investment when compared to civil and political rights. In fact, civil and social rights only require the government not to interfere with the individual freedoms. It is true that most of the economic and social rights need high investment levels for full application and enjoyment. However, economic and social rights also require the government not to interfere with the individual freedoms (Koch, 2006). In some of the jurisdictions. The plaintiff has to demonstrate that they are directly affected by the violation in question or otherwise they will have no standing in the court (Roşu, 2015). This is important because if an individual is required to demonstrate a direct personal interest before being heard, then it is impossible for the public interest and civil society groups to bring any matter to court for the common good of the citizens.

Many countries, however, do not require demonstration of a direct personal interest. Still, on the issue of jurisdiction, the national context also has a big bearing on the political and civil rights vs the social and economic rights. Therefore, in this case, the right to political participation is a human right while the right to education is not a human right. This argument is inaccurate in the sense that elections in some cases may be very expensive and less effective when it comes to the common good than with education. According to O'Brien (2012), the decision for the states to prioritize elections over education is a political choice with no logical or scientific basis. A government can as well spend more money on the education system, and less on elections.

There is no clear evidence which among the two would be better for the common good. Thus economic and social rights play a vital role in underpinning healthy democracy and higher levels of freedom enjoyed (Chong, 2009). According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, when looked at closely it does not make sense to speak about human rights as civil and political or economic and social. It is, therefore, more sensible and increasingly common to refer to human rights as civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. The Vienna Declaration of 1993, ratified by 171 states served to endorse the indivisibility of human rights (Forsythe, 2012). The Vienna Declaration extended the consensus on the indivisibility of human rights as it affirms the interdependence between the human rights values and democracy.