Introduction

Abstract

Socio-economic rights have, until recently, been systematically neglected in our current world. An important reason for this neglect is found to be in the lack of clarity surrounding the justification and content of socio-economic rights. This book seeks to provide an analytic framework for understanding the content of socio-economic rights and to draw out the implications of this framework for the enforcement of these rights. The first half of the book considers the philosophical justification both of civil and political as well as social and economic rights. A justification is also provided for the judicial review of such rights. The second half of the book focuses on the implications of this philosophical discussion for law and policy and provides an argument for the adoption of a modified version of the ‘minimum core’ approach towards socio-economic rights.