Human Rights Economics

Abstract

Over the decades human rights advocates have increasingly engaged with economic policy with a growing focus on what economies would look like if they were based on human rights. This article reports on an inquiry that asked whether it is possible to articulate a concept of human rights economics and if so, what its main features would be. This article notes the elements that ecological, feminist, and other branches of economics brought to light and succeeded in integrating into economic thought and policy. Drawing on this logic, this article analyzes key human rights principles to discern whether these can be articulated in economics. Concluding that they can, this article finds that it is possible to speak of human rights economics as a separate and complementary branch of economics, even if further work is required to finesse how this can be done. Finally, this article suggests some steps that can be taken to bring about more human rights-consistent economic thought and practice, and notes ways that human rights-based questioning of the assumptions that underlie mainstream economics could have a potentially transformative effect.