Socio-economic Rights Research Articles

Socioeconomic and Cultural Rights and the Anthropocene

Socioeconomic and Cultural Rights and the Anthropocene

Democratic Governance and Human Rights Violations: A Focus on Nigeria

For decades, the menace of human rights violations in the Nigerian democratic setting has defied all responses. Not even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, nor the more recent ENDSARS protest of October 2020 could adequately tackle the menace of human rights violations in Nigeria. For this reason, the study specifically examined how the Nigerian democratic governance through those in position of authority and security agencies have violated the socio-economic and political rights of Nigerian citizens. The study is qualitative and employed descriptive research design. It adopted John Locke’s Natural rights theory in explaining the relationship between democratic governance and human rights violations. Having presented and analysed the data gathered through documentary evidence, the study revealed that the arbitrary use of power by the Nigerian government and the security forces have grossly violated human rights of Nigerian citizens. Therefore, the study recommended inter-alia, the need for Nigerian citizens to step up their local and international campaigns against civilian-dictatorship as well as the need for the Nigerian government to set up a new independent and impartial institution that will be responsible to treat all cases of human rights violations in the state.

Reflection on Socioeconomic and Cultural Rights of People with Disabilities in Ethiopia

Reflection on Socioeconomic and Cultural Rights of People with Disabilities in Ethiopia

Trafficked Adult Males as (Un)Gendered Protection Seekers: Between Presumption of Invulnerability and Exclusion from Membership of a Particular Social Group

Abstract The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Guidelines on International Protection No 7: The Application of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees to Victims of Trafficking and Persons at Risk of Being Trafficked recognize that, although not all trafficked persons fall within the scope of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, some could satisfy all elements of the refugee definition. Such a possibility is not least implicit in the 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, as well as in the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. In order to obtain asylum, trafficked persons and their legal representatives tend to rely on the trafficked person being recognized as a member of a particular social group (PSG), and on establishing a well-founded fear of persecution on such a ground. While women trafficked for sexual exploitation have been recognized as members of a PSG in several jurisdictions, although not always in a consistent manner, the recognition of trafficked men as members of a PSG has proven to be more challenging. It is argued that the difficulties faced by adult men are attributable to the gender stereotyping operationalized by asylum decision-making bodies, which have consistently failed to recognize the gender dimension of trafficking with respect to men and boys, focusing almost entirely on women and girls as gendered subjects. In addition, the difficulties are also attributable to the nature of the exploitation to which most trafficked men are subjected, as forced labour and forced criminality are considered ‘lesser’ harms than sexual exploitation, and because violations of socio-economic rights as a ground for asylum are not yet fully recognized. This contribution explores the theoretical underpinnings of these two elements and their impact on the assessment of asylum claims brought by trafficked adult men, using the United Kingdom as a case study.

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN ISLAMIC AND WESTERN LAWS IN TERMS OF HUDOOD AND TAAZIRAT

War is recurrent factor of history that has not only affected the international orders and balance of power, but also impacted the society as general and women as particular. Women have been tortured during domestic and international conflicts. The women’s right violations and human casualties led nations to come up with some legal framework to mitigate and eliminate women suffering during conflicts and crises. The study focuses to draw a research review between Islamic Criminal Laws and Western International Criminal Laws focusing on women’s right. Islamic Criminal Laws has enunciated authentic principles regarding women rights; they cannot be killed during war and should be protected and respected as per their status if they are even Prisoner of War. Along with this, West has developed a lot of legal frameworks and Universal declarations regarding women’s rights in International Criminal Laws. Since the number of women who participated in war was insignificant until the outbreak of World War I, the need for special protection for them was not felt prior to that time. International Humanitarian Laws awarded them some general legal protection as men. If they wounded, women were protected by the provision of the 1864 Geneva Conventions. If women become prisoner of war, they benefited from the regulations of Hague Convention 1899 and 1907 on the Laws and Customs of War on Land. Similarly, under International treaties government are binded by legal obligation of Convention on the Elimination of all form of Discrimination against Women. This convention binds its member states to provide socio-economic and political rights to women and protect them against any discrimination and violence.

The right to adequate housing for IDPs in the context of slow-onset climate-induced disasters within the European Union

Abstract The effects of climate change are projected to lead to significant displacement within the European Union (EU). However, internal displacement caused by slow-onset disasters has been neglected from discourse, and the EU lacks a legal framework for internal displacement. This article deploys an interdisciplinary approach to assess the protection offered to internally placed persons (IDPs) in this context: a legal analysis evaluates the right to adequate housing and a discourse analysis unpacks the construction of ‘forced displacement’ surrounding the non-binding Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Special attention will be paid to individual vulnerabilities and structural socio-economic constraints as drivers for internal displacement. The findings reveal that the human-rights-based framework provides relatively weak socio-economic housing rights. Protection of adequate housing is only offered in reactive claims requiring proof of severe environmental impact. Moreover, IDPs were initially constructed as a distinct group characterized by direct violence and imminent disasters rather than structural constraints. While the discourse recently shifted to recognize the complexity of individual displacement experiences, no corresponding concept has been institutionalized. Thus, this article recommends that the EU draw inspiration from the Kampala Convention regarding its definition of internal displacement, the legally binding nature and proactive state obligations.

Environment or (Collective) Human Rights: What Is More Important?

This article reflects on the ‘Yellowstone model’ of environmental conservation while considering the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/ International Council of Monuments and Sites /International Union for Conservation of Nature’s recommendation on the voluntary relocation of Maasai residents from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania. While advocating for an inclusive conservation approach, it synthesizes the extent to which the relocation has affected the collective socioeconomic and cultural rights of the Maasai in the property. It discusses the concept of Yellowstone conservation model, and subsequently traces the legal background to the existence of the Maasai in the NCA. The NCA’s statuses as a UNESCO heritage site of outstanding universal value, international biosphere reserve, and a global geo-park are also canvassed in the light of multiple-land use model. It further critically discusses the practical impacts of controlling the growing Maasai population at the site through induced voluntary relocation. The authors have drawn lessons from the Inter-American human rights system on the same area of conservation. Ultimately, the article concludes with practical recommendations and proposed issues for further research on this controversial topic.

Justiciability of Socioeconomic Rights in Nigeria and Its Critics: Does International Law Provide any Guidance?

A recalcitrantly enduring polemic in the annals of human rights and constitutional law jurisprudence in Nigeria centers on whether socioeconomic rights are justiciable in the country. This burgeoning controversy is rooted not only in the balkanization of the two principal genres of human rights and their compartmentalization into distinct parts of the Constitution, namely Chapters II and IV respectively, but also in explicitly baptizing one as ‘fundamental rights’ whilst denying similar appellation to the other. Adding to this obfuscation is deafening silence on the part of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, thereby fueling the belief, in many circles, that domestic legal frameworks do not bestow recognition upon socioeconomic rights. But does this understanding represent the correct position of the law? Does international law offer any guidance? Responding to these questions is the task of this paper. Its central contention is that current reality, made more evident by international human rights law, leans toward justiciability of socioeconomic rights.

Beyond minimalism and usurpation: designing judicial review to control the mis-enforcement of socioeconomic rights Designing judicial review to control the mis-enforcement of socioeconomic rights

Resumo This work critically evaluates the judicial enforcement of socioeconomic rights and its associate discourses. Drawing on the findings of an empirical research study on the health care-related litigation in Brazil, I argue that none of the two main arguments that drive this constitutional law debate —judicial minimalism and judicial usurpation— offer a complete account as to what I call the mis-enforcement of rights: a scenario with a deficit of inequality resulting from non-justified distributive and aggregate effects due to the judicial protection of a target group. I present evidence that two overlooked structural factors are actually in the roots of the mis-enforcement: the right-based legal reasoning and the litigation system focused on individualized lawsuits. Thus, in order to reorient the debate, I propose a design approach, according to which judicial enforcement of socioeconomic rights in dysfunctional democracies is legitimate as long as it focuses on (i) improving social change through a distribution of goods that guarantee basic needs to disadvantaged groups, under the counter-majoritarian principle, and on (ii) providing the institutions with incentives to effectively take political issues back to the democratic process. Achieving this purpose requires the adjudicatory practice (i) to regard issues more likely to arise in socioeconomic rights-related litigation —such as needs and recipients; (ii) to address background rules that interfere in the dynamics of enforcement— such as the distributive and aggregate effects; and (iii) to observe a procedure that promotes democratic values, such as political engagement, institutional accountability, representativeness, and openness.

Problems of Unorganized Workers

Despite their significant contribution to the economy, only 6 % of unorganized workers avail any type of social security support. The growth of real wages of casual workers has also been relatively slow in the post-reform period. The workers of the unorganized sectors are the worst affected in the event of any kind of crisis. The fundamental socio-economic rights of domestic migrant workers were adversely affected during the lockdown, but the state response was not up to the expectation. Despite expansion in policy and programmes, India`s wage and social security system is quite vulnerable to unorganized workers. The people of our country know how to arrange the means of subsistence on their own, but if they get adequate government sponsored social assistance easily at the right time, then the difficulties related to their life will be greatly reduced.

IMPAIRED AND IMPUGNED ROLE OF CJEU TOWARDS ‘EQUALITY’

The institutional regimentation, and an exclusive commitment of the European Union (EU) towards the parochial economic integration across Europe, in these days, has been transcended with its subsequent contributions to dealing with many rightsbased concerns. One of the major legal challenges of the EU seems its institutional competence and the legal regime within which they perform. In its continuous mode of modulation, the EU perhaps relied on the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) mostly due to its scope of judicial activism. Departing from a lego-centric pattern, the CJEU started to concentrate on a wide range of sources of human rights and kept the activism up to realize and uphold ‘equality’ in developing socio-economic human rights. Nonetheless, the CJEU has to chase and transcend the questions of competence dilemma, the plea of vitiating state sovereignty even in universalising the norms of human rights, an inherent teleological approach of the EU institutions including CJEU in deciding the legal questions recounting an imbalance between the market-making policies and socio-economic rights, the trend of intergovernmentalism deploying to supersede the merit of CJEU’s verdict, the disproportionate consideration to sexual orientation, and the non-recognition of hypothetical comparators in some member states. Apart from them, considering the internal factors, the absence of dissenting opinions, and time and resource constraints of this court accounted for the insufficient growth of equality norms across the socio-economic rights in the EU regime have been analysed in this research to get the understanding of the challenges located inside the CJEU.

Transnational migration and dual citizenship: The conundrum of social and economic rights of dual citizens in Pakistan

Pakistan is among the Asian countries which permits dual citizenship. However, the dual citizenship privileges availed by overseas-based Pakistanis spark intense debate making Pakistani dual citizens and their entitlements a contested subject in the country. A qualitative study was conducted in the city of Rawalpindi asking what the attitudes of Pakistani citizens on dual citizenship are, as well as their positions on the rights of dual citizens with regard to education, employment and property ownership in Pakistan. In-depth interviews were conducted with two groups of interviewees: 25 Pakistani citizens and 18 Pakistani dual citizens. The findings suggest that Pakistani citizens resist the unconditional provision of socio-economic rights to Pakistani dual citizens considering their “split loyalties.” Most of the respondents argued against their employment in sensitive institutions such as the armed forces and judiciary, however, their right to education and property acquisition was supported in circumstances when it benefits Pakistan’s development. The perspectives of dual citizens also reflect ambivalence over how to resolve the allegiance conundrum and as a result, display divergent views on their privileges and rights in their home country.

Untouchable Perpetrators, Forgotten Rights, Transitional Justice, Corporate Accountability and Socio-Economic Rights Lessons from Argentina by Laura García Martín

Untouchable Perpetrators, Forgotten Rights, Transitional Justice, Corporate Accountability and Socio-Economic Rights Lessons from Argentina by Laura García Martín

Modern Studies of the Political Identity of Russian Youth

The paper presents an overview of modern studies of the political identity of Russian youth. Youth refers to representatives of millennials and zoomers. The concept of political identity is defined as the identification of an individual with a group united by political values, historical narratives, preferences in behavior models. It is determined that the authors pay considerable attention to the study of online youth activism. It caused this the significant role of social media in the lives of young people. The research established that political issues are not a priority for most young people in everyday life. The authors noted the orientation of young people on issues of social justice and guarantees of socio-economic rights. During the period of high political dynamics, young people are actively involved in various political processes. The matter of the existence of an intergenerational gap in political values and behavior remains debatable. The loyalty of young people to the political system of the country is directly related to the concept of the legitimacy of the political regime. The author identifies promising areas of research on the political identity of young people in modern conditions.

The Impact of Digitalization on the Transformation of the Concept of Socio-Economic Federalism

This study of the impact of digitalization on socio-economic federalism covers only certain aspects of this topic. In the article it is noted that digital assistants contribute to significant time savings and ease of use of services related to the sphere of state and municipal government. The possibilities of using digital technologies are leading to the fact that the hierarchical management, typical of classical bureaucracy, is collapsing, but this does not yet mean the failure of paper bureaucracy. At the same time, it is indicated that digital technologies are the tool that allows one to open the axiological gap between the real state of affairs in different regions of the Russian Federation in terms of creating conditions for the realization of socio-economic rights of the individual. The possibilities of differentiation and disproportion in the regulation of various legal relations in the subject of the Russian Federation should be focused on creating equal conditions for achieving one’s own well-being. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the substantiation of the possibility of using digital technologies, which make it possible to more quickly navigate the needs of the inhabitants of a particular region of the country and, using the electronic rule-making tool, contribute to a better law-making process in the subject of the Russian Federation in terms of the regulation of socio-economic rights. The scientific result of the study was a proposal for the gradual, soft introduction of digital technologies on existing portals to improve the well-being of citizens, taking into account their needs.

Strategic litigation before the European Committee of Social Rights: Fit for purpose?

This article examines the structural elements of the Collective Complaints Procedure, seen as an avenue of socio-economic rights strategic litigation, that potentially enable or impede NGOs and trade unions in addressing violations of the European Social Charter before the European Committee of Social Rights. The findings show that the procedure is a unique form of collective redress in the human rights system, with exceptional structural characteristics, which render it an avenue of strategic litigation by its nature. Its main strength lies in that it enables the participation of organisations and vulnerable groups of people that are denied access in political or judicial fora, either at the domestic or supranational level, to deliberate on social policy issues and put pressure on States to address social issues on the basis of economic and social rights.

International labor organization and international non-governmental organizations: interaction on human rights

The interaction of representatives of civil society – INGOs – with specialized international organizations at the global level involves the development of recommendations, the adoption of international conventions and other acts aimed at the effective legal regulation of socio-economic human rights. As a rule, the result of consultations, exchange of views, search for a compromise on complex and controversial issues of ensuring socio-economic rights is the development of the most general variant of behavior, which further forms a specific legal norm in the national social security system and other areas of current legislation. The article analyzes interaction of the International Labor Organization and international non-governmental organizations regarding human rights promotion. As a tripartite organization, the ILO does not just cooperate with non-governmental organizations, but actually integrates sectors of civil society into its structure. The ILO interacts with INGOs that have a consultative status, cooperates at the operational level with various international, regional, national and local organizations. The article also analyzes the procedure for monitoring the practical application of the conventions is the consideration of complaints from various public organizations, as well as states.

Setting the record straight in socio-economic rights adjudication: The Mitu-Bell Welfare Society Supreme Court of Kenya judgment

A leading criticism of the Mitu-Bell Welfare Society decision in the Supreme Court of Kenya is that it fell short of achieving the transformative effects expected similar to South Africa’s Irene Grootboom. One such critique has been provided by Ian Mwiti Mathenge in his paper which this article responds to by asserting that the Court addressed relevant issues to Kenya’s jurisprudential needs. Specifically, the Court clearly affirmed evictees’ rights to seek redress, including compensation, adequate notice, dignified treatment and even the provision of alternative land for resettlement. The analysis of the case also acknowledges the Court’s interpretation on the place of international law in Kenya, and areas for future research and development.

Mitu-Bell Welfare Society redux: A note on the strengths and weaknesses of the Supreme Court judgement

This note reviews the case of Mitu-Bell Welfare Society in view of the concerns raised over the Supreme Court judgment, as well as points raised in its support. It argues that on one hand, the court laid down foundations for future interpretation that will help courts better address violations of socio-economic rights in Kenya. Importantly, the court addressed the rights of persons facing evictions in informal settlements and the ‘bare minimum’ standards that should be applied in such situations. On the other hand, the note agrees with those who have found issue with how the court canvassed the place of international law in Kenya.

THE INSTITUTE OF CITIZEN APPEALS AS AN ACTIVE MECHANISM FOR THE PROTECTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS

The institute of appeal of citizens to state authorities as an effective mechanism of implementation of socio-economic human rights and freedoms is studied. Attention is drawn to the fact that human rights are the highest social value and determine the degree of political, economic, cultural and other human freedoms. The authors established that the state must be accountable to the individual for its activities, in this regard, ensuring human rights and freedoms is the main responsibility of the state, but all this is possible subject to the principle of the rule of law, which in many countries is enshrined as constitutional. It was found that the problematic issues remain related to the definition of international requirements for the mechanism of implementation of the right of citizens to appeal to public authorities, providing a mechanism for exercising the right of citizens to appeal to public authorities using the latest information technologies, etc. The authors have found that the institute of citizens' appeal to public authorities, as a mechanism for exercising human rights and freedoms, includes many important areas, such as the conduct of public affairs, both directly and through freely elected representatives; the functioning of public control; ensuring the right of access to public information, etc. The peculiarities of the development of the institute of citizens' recourse in the context of international experience in the realization of human rights and freedoms were investigated. It was found that the dynamism of the development of international law at the present time has also influenced the fairly rapid development of the institute of citizens' right to appeal to public authorities, which in turn has affected the increased participation of citizens of different states in the political processes in the world. The concept of the right of citizens to appeal to public authorities has been formulated. International requirements for the mechanism of implementation of the citizens' right to appeal to public authorities were analyzed and identified. The authors found that the international requirements for the mechanism of implementation of the citizens' right to appeal to public authorities are based on five basic principles. The prospect of introducing information technology in the process of citizens' applications to public authorities is considered. It was determined that the rapid development of modern information technologies and their introduction into various spheres of social life has not bypassed their introduction into the legal sphere, which in turn led to the processing of increasing volumes of information in a short period of time, and on the other hand, was a consequence of threats of violation of individual rights, through unauthorized access to personal data, their theft and use for criminal purposes. Shows the problematic aspects arising from the introduction of modern technologies in the work with the citizens' appeal, which affect the protection of personal data. The experience of many countries, such as Great Britain, Germany, Scotland, USA, etc., in the implementation of the system of electronic appeal and the use of electronic petitions as the most progressive form of communication with the government is analyzed.