Are There Global Obligations to Assist in the Realization of Socio-Economic Rights? (original) (raw)

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

Abstract

This Article focuses on global obligations to assist in realizing socio-economic rights, which represent a missing element in existing international human rights law. They are neither understood correctly in human rights theory and discourse nor acknowledged and implemented in international legal order. Contemporary mechanisms for assistance are insufficient, inefficient, and often violate human rights. Accountability bodies capable of holding multiple actors responsible for their breaches of obligations to assist are lacking. Since global obligations to assist are indispensable for reducing extreme poverty and inequality, as well as empowering the most vulnerable individuals and societies, the justification, conceptualization, and furtherance of such obligations is a task of paramount significance. In a time of pandemic, an efficient global system of assistance is more important than ever. On the basis of normative principles that are defended in contemporary legal and political philosophy and embedded in human rights law, the Article proposes a coherent and plausible framework for reconstructing international human rights law regulating obligations to assist. It develops a legal-philosophical justification and outlines a legal conception of global human rights obligations to assist. Following that, it critically assesses human rights instruments governing obligations of assistance, detects gaps, and suggests improvements. The Article also examines existing mechanisms used to implement obligations to assist and their critique, formulates recommendations on how current institutions and practices of assistance might be fortified, and sketches some important features of a global institutional design necessary for the realization of global obligations to assist.

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