The Future of Economic and Social Rights

Description

The future of economic and social rights is unlikely to resemble its past. Neglected within the human rights movement, avoided by courts, and subsumed within a single-minded conception of development as economic growth, economic and social rights enjoyed an uncertain status in international human rights law and in the public laws of most countries. However, today, under conditions of immense poverty, insecurity, and political instability, the rights to education, health care, housing, social security, food, water, and sanitation are central components of the human rights agenda. The Future of Economic and Social Rights captures the significant transformations occurring in the theory and practice of economic and social rights, in constitutional and human rights law. Professor Katharine G. Young brings together a group of distinguished scholars from diverse disciplines to examine and advance the broad research field of economic and social rights that incorporates legal, political science, economic, philosophy and anthropology scholars.

Katharine G. Young is Associate Professor of Law at Boston College, Massachusetts. She has published widely in the fields of public law, human rights, and constitutionalism and is the author of Constituting Economic and Social Rights (2012) and editor of The Public Law of Gender (Cambridge, 2016) with Kim Rubenstein. She completed her doctorate in law at Harvard University, and was a fellow at Harvard's Justice, Welfare and Economics program. Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University, Massachusetts. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and include On Economic Inequality (1973, 1997); Poverty and Famines (1981); Commodities and Capabilities (1985); The Standard of Living (1987); Development as Freedom (1999); The Idea of Justice (2009); An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions (jointly with Jean Dreze, 2013); and The Country of First Boys (2015). Amartya Sen's awards include Bharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur (France); the National Humanities Medal (USA); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); Honorary Companion of Honour (UK); the Aztec Eagle (Mexico); the Edinburgh Medal (UK); the George Marshall Award (USA); the Eisenhower Medal (USA); and the Nobel Prize in Economics.

'In a fast-growing area, Katharine G. Young stays at the forefront. She is sure-footed, rigorous and empathetic.' Albie Sachs, former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa 'Methodologically pluralist and ranging widely over the world, these interdisciplinary essays [do much more than survey the existing state of knowledge about social and economic rights. They] define important lines of inquiry for future scholarship. All scholars interested in the field, whatever their discipline, will find much here to help them understand the field and move knowledge forward.' Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard University, Massachusetts 'Katharine G. Young's impressive collection is an indispensable resource [for anyone working on or with economic and social rights]. Many of the leading voices in the field have contributed their recent findings and insights. Disregarding the fashionable disenchantment with human rights, these chapters analyse and firmly establish the role of rights as instruments of social justice. Spanning four continents and combining multiple scholarly methods and perspectives, this book may not literally predict the future, but it is undoubtedly able to inspire it.' Eva Brems, Universiteit Gent 'Economic and social rights are the future, whether through their realization, contributing to political stability and distributive justice, or through their denial, creating the space for individual and collective disempowerment, rising inequalities, political unrest and social conflict. The thought-provoking perspectives of the contributors to this book offer a nuanced understanding of both possibilities and of what lies in between.' Virginia Bras Gomes, Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights