Social citizenship going international: Changes in the reading ofUN‐sponsored economic and social rights

Abstract

The article investigates the relevance ofUN‐sponsored economic and social rights for social citizenship, commonly understood as a set of social rights granted on the national level. DoUN‐sponsored economic and social ‘rights’ promise social citizenship? The article cautions against quick assumptions that draw simply on the wording of these rights. An in‐depth historical analysis demonstrates that the advocates of economic and social rights propagated several ideas (liberalism, developmental thinking, socialism), mostly unrelated to the idea of social citizenship. Only later, in the 1990s, did the reading of these rights shift significantly, testifying to a new ideational consensus among states. Empirical data extracted from all the States Parties reports filed under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (1977–2011) indicate that, at least with respect to poverty, important rights under theICESCRare nowadays understood so as to incorporate elements of social citizenship, obliging states to not neglect individual over collective welfare.