What are economic, social and cultural rights

 

60 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed a wide spectrum of human rights that every human being has – without discrimination. They include not only rights to freedom of expression and freedom from torture and ill-treatment, but also rights to education, to adequate housing and other economic, social and cultural rights.

Economic, social and cultural rights are a broad category of human rights guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other legally binding international and regional human rights treaties. Nearly every country in the world is party to a legally binding treaty that guarantees these rights. They include:

rights at work, particularly just and fair conditions of employment, protection against forced or compulsory labor and the right to form and join trade unions;

the right to education, including ensuring that primary education is free and compulsory, that education is sufficiently available, accessible, acceptable and adapted to the individual;

cultural rights of minorities and Indigenous Peoples;

the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including the right to healthy living conditions and available, accessible, acceptable and quality health services;

the right to adequate housing, including security of tenure, protection from forced eviction and access to affordable, habitable, well located and culturally adequate housing;

the right to food, including the right to freedom from hunger and access at all times to adequate nutritious food or the means to obtain it;

the right to water – the right to sufficient water and sanitation that is available, accessible (both physically and economically) and safe.

Who is responsible?

States – national governments – bear the primary responsibility for making human rights a reality. Governments must respect peoples' rights – they must not violate these rights. They must protect peoples' rights – ensuring that other people or bodies do not abuse these rights. And they must fulfill peoples' rights, making them a reality in practice.

Governments have widely differing resources. International law allows for the fact that making economic, social and cultural rights a reality can only be achieved progressively over time. However, the duty of governments to respect and protect these rights and to ensure freedom from discrimination is immediate. Lack of resources is no excuse.

Although governments may need time to realize economic, social and cultural rights, this does not mean they can do nothing – they have to take steps towards fulfilling them. As an initial step, they must prioritize "minimum core obligations" – minimum essential levels of each of the rights. Under the right to education, for example, core obligations include the right to free primary education.

Governments must not discriminate in their laws, policies or practices and must prioritize the most vulnerable when allocating resources.

States also have obligations when they act beyond their borders to respect, protect and fulfill economic, social and cultural rights. These obligations extend to action they take through intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "every organ of society" has human rights responsibilities. Corporations play an increasingly significant role globally in the realization or denial of human rights. Amnesty International is committed to holding businesses accountable where their actions result in human rights violations.

Despite international guarantees of these rights, across the world:

923 million people were suffering from chronic hunger. Hunger is often driven by human rights violations, as Amnesty International has documented in North Korea, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. The current world food crisis, which itself has been fuelled by human rights violations, has led to an additional 75 million people being chronically malnutritioned.

Over a billion people live in 'slums' or informal settlements, with one in every three city residents living in inadequate housing with no or few basic services. Their situation is worsened by a global epidemic of mass forced evictions.

Every minute, another woman dies because of problems related to pregnancy. For every woman who dies, 20 or more experience serious complications.

Over 100 million children (more than half of whom are girls) do not have access even to primary education.

 

Vocabulary:

Xenophobia: A fear of foreigners, of persons from other countries or of things foreign generally. Xenophobia can lead to discrimination, racism, violence and even armed conflict against foreigners.

Human trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor

Creed – A set of fundamental beliefs or guiding principles

 

Ex. 1. A) Speak about democracy. How do you understand it? Can you give explanation of it?

Discuss:

What does it mean to be fully human? How is that different from just "being alive" or "surviving"?

Based on this list, what do people need to live in dignity?

Are all human beings essentially equal? What is the value of human differences?

Can any of our "essential" human qualities be taken from us? For example, only human beings can communicate with complex language; are you human if you lose the power of speech?

What happens when a person or government attempts to deprive someone of something that is necessary to human dignity?

What would happen if you had to give up one of these human necessities?

 

B) Read aloud the story of Dr. Martin Luther King's life. Make notes of the main periods of his life. Say why he was called ‘CIVIL RIGHT LEADER’.

 

Ex. 2. Cut out each statement and glue under Right or Responsibility. Explain why your group decided it was a either

Be treated kindly To ask for help

To do my best To complete assignments

To a clean and attractive classroom To work in a quiet classroom

Use materials neatly and return to

correct place To be kind

To learn To tell the teacher what I am feeling

To be on time to school To follow the teachers

directions

To use my time wisely To be listened to

Not to bully others To not bully others

To listen to others To complete assignments

 

Ex. 3. Match the columns:

1. someone who sells things a. alley

2. a general name for "cows" b. appetite

3. skinny; thin c. boast

4. huge, large, enormous d. cattle

5. without covering or clothing e. drudgery

6. on the whole f. dull

7. improve the quality of something g. entirely

8. wander, walk around without direction h. gigantic

9. desire to eat i. goofy

10. upset, very mad j. hatch

11. funny, silly k. naked

12. boring, not exciting; not bright or sharp l. outraged

13. have difficulty doing something; fight m. outskirts

14. break out of an egg n. peddler

15. brag; say great things about yourself o. portion

16. get bigger, enlarge p. roam

17. small part or section q. slim

18. the suburbs, area around a city r. struggle

19. a narrow passageway or street s. swell

20. hard, uninteresting labor t. upgrade

 

Ex. 4. Roleplay with your desk-mate any situation where you can demonstrate your rights.

 

Ex. 5. A) Watch the video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTlrSYbCbHE.

 

B) Write essay about the right of the nations living in our country to learn and teach their native languages at schools and speak in them.

 

Ex. 6. A) Make a list of rights that women of the 19th century didn’t have but now they do. Discuss them with whole group.

 

B) Game ‘Guess’. On separate sheets of paper write some of those rights and fix them on the backs of students so that the owners of sheets not to see what is written there. Group can walk around the class to read each others sheets. Then students have to explain each other what right is on their backs.

 

Note: Students are not allowed to use words written on the sheets, they can do explonation with help of synonyms/ antonyms.