Economic Rights
Conceptual, Measurement, and Policy Issues

This book assesses economic rights and explains their evolution, measurement, and implementation internationally.

Shareen Hertel (Author), Lanse Minkler (Author)

9780521690829, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 August 2007

420 pages, 20 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

'This edited volume brings to the fore the vital concept of economic rights. … The editors have filled the existing research gaps by not only addressing the debate on economic rights in a much more comprehensive manner, but also by providing a deeper understanding of the notion of economic rights. The articles in this volume are by knowledgeable writers, some of whom are established authorities in their respective fields. In an informative introduction, the editors lay out the issues related to economic rights and provide a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of available research on economic rights. … I highly recommend this volume for researchers, policy makers, policy activists and students working on economic rights and social security.' Development and Change

This edited volume offers scholarship on economic rights by leading scholars in the fields of economics, law, and political science. It analyzes the central features of economic rights: their conceptual, measurement, and policy dimensions. In its introduction, the book provides a conceptualization of economic rights based on a three-pronged definition: the right to a decent standard of living, the right to work, and the right to basic income support for people who cannot work. Subsequent chapters correct existing conceptual mistakes in the literature, provide new measurement techniques with country rankings, and analyze policy implementation at the international, regional, national, and local levels. While it forms a cohesive whole, the book is nevertheless rich in contending perspectives.

Foreword
Introduction: 1. Economic rights: the terrain Shareen Hertel and Lanse Minkler
Part I. Concepts: 2. The West and economic rights Jack Donnelly
3. A needs-based approach to social and economic rights Wiktor Osiatynski
4. Economic rights in the knowledge economy: an instrumental justification Albino Barrera
5. 'None so poor that he is compelled to sell himself': democracy, subsistence, and basic income Michael Goodhart
6. Benchmarking the right to work Philip Harvey
Part II. Measurement: 7. The status of efforts to monitor economic, social, and cultural rights Audrey R. Chapman
8. Measuring the progressive realization of economic and social rights Clair Apodaca
9. Economic rights, human development effort, and institutions Mwangi Samson Kimenyi
10. Measuring government effort to respect economic and social human rights: a peer benchmark David L. Cingranelli and David L. Richards
11. Government respect for women's economic rights: a cross-national analysis, 1981–2003 Shawna E. Sweeney
Part III. Policy Issues: 12. Economic rights and extraterritorial obligations Sigrun I. Skogly and Mark Gibney
13. Millenium development goal 8: can it be an accountability framework for international human rights obligations? Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
14. The United States and international economic rights: law, social reality, and political choice David Forsythe
15. Public policy and economic rights in Ghana and Uganda Susan Dicklitch and Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
16. Human rights as instruments of emancipation and economic development Kaushik Basu
17. Worker rights and economic development: the cases of occupational safety and health and child labor Peter Dorman.

Subject Areas: Human rights & civil liberties law [LNDC]