An Introduction to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Overcoming The Constraints of Categorization Through Implementation

Abstract

This chapter's objective is to give introduction of the subject to international human rights law because the study of economic, social and cultural rights is now very wide with a strong focus on a number of substantive areas. It focuses on the historical context of the development of human rights law, because that explains the block or hesitancy in the practice of many States, in the hope that jurisprudence and practice from others parts of the world will fire the enthusiasm for domestic law reform. The discussion on the domestic enforcement through justiciability is also skewed in favour of the cases from States which have begun to protect economic, social and cultural rights. The chapter takes essentially a chronological approach from the international to the domestic with a view to illustrate how an initial false categorization has been utilized to create tiers in the protection of human rights. Keywords: cultural right; domestic law reform; economic right; international human rights law; social right