A re-examination of economic, social and cultural rights in a political society in the light of the principle of human dignity

This study has examined the justification of economic, social and cultural rights guaranteed under international (human rights) law and its implications for the State obligations emerging therefrom. It has particularly investigated whether and in what manner human dignity provides a viable normative justification for ESC rights guaranteed under international law and the kind of concrete State legal obligations flowing therefrom and the way these obligations are reflected in international ESC rights jurisprudence from across jurisdictions. The study provides a fresh perspective regarding the way we should approach the justification, nature and legal implications of ESC rights both generally and in the specific context of vulnerable persons. To this end, the study, having identified the critical limitations of the traditional human rights theories, has introduced the idea of the social conception of human rights, that is, human rights as being rooted in and essentially concerned with the practical and complex social relations and therewith the protection, preservation and promotion of the life and value of human being. It has argued that human dignity constitutes an underlying moral principle behind the social relations and the normative justification of all human rights. As a normative principle, human dignity asserts an unconditional respect for the moral and biological being of humans. In the context of ESC rights, this obligation threads on the State’s obligation to respect and ensure essential procedural and substantive conditions required to live a dignified human life.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/9bf221ef-c540-4f1c-ac74-5796e27ab9ad