Economic and Social Rights
The Audit has published a book on economic and social rights in the United Kingdom, Unequal Britain: a human rights route to social justice (Politico's, 2006). We consider that any assessment of democracy should include economic and social rights and entitlements, although many western political scientists would not count these as part of what they understand as "democracy". Our argument is that citizens cannot exercise their civil and democratic rights and opportunities effectively in practice without economic and social security; and that most people in most places tend to judge the quality of their democracy by its ability to secure them the basic economic and social rights on which a minimally decent life depends.
In part, the aim of the book is to show the relevance to democracy of economic and social rights in a developed country and to pioneer establishing standards by which they may be measured in such countries. But we also hope to make a relevant contribution to public debate on public policy in the UK.
In 2002, the Audit gave evidence to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) for its periodic inquiry into such rights in the UK and also contributed to a joint NGO submission. In 2003, the Audit was asked to give written and oral evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights on the CESCR's verdict on economic and social rights in the UK (UN doc E/C. 12/1).
| Here we present an edited version of the written evidence which contains an analysis of the role of judicial review in cases involving economic and social rights: |
| Click here to download and read more >> |
[Size 85kb/doc] |
As part of this analysis, we are currently studying the need for a Single Equality Act to unify anti-discrimination laws in the UK and to oblige public authorities to sponsor equal treatment for all, regardless of difference. Tufyal Choudhury, one of the authors of the forthcoming book, has drafted a note on discrimination in economic and social life that shows how patchy the law protecting people against discrimination is and how far the UK is from equality in housing, education, health and other economic and social aspects of life.
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