© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
This article appears in the following Journal of Human Rights Practice issue: Special Issue: Where Is The Evidence? [View the issue table of contents]
Closing the ‘Escape Hatch’: A Toolkit to Monitor the Progressive Realization of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Independent Human Rights Consultant
Plaza de la Paja 2 2d
Madrid 28005
Spain
eitanfelner{at}yahoo.com
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Abstract |
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A basic paradox underlies much work on economic, social, and cultural rights. At the level of theory, there is widespread recognition among experts and advocates that the obligation to progressively realize these rights ‘to the maximum of a state's available resources’ is at the heart of their realization. However, at the practical level – in terms of monitoring efforts, field investigations, and adjudication by courts – this key obligation has largely been sidelined, and the focus instead has been on various immediate obligations related to these rights, which are not dependent on resource availability. This article argues that while this focus has been effective in many ways, circumventing the standard of progressive realization has severely constrained the ability of the human rights movement to hold governments accountable for policies and practices that turn millions of people into victims of avoidable deprivations such as illiteracy, malnutrition, preventable diseases, and homelessness.
The article then proposes a methodological toolkit to monitor the obligation of progressive realization. This toolkit has two components: (1) a basic framework of three steps, each with its own simple methods; (2) a set of more sophisticated tools that have been developed in recent years by various researchers or used by civil society organizations. These methods can be powerful tools of social change, allowing us to expand the areas of government policy that come under scrutiny and accountability and to provide objective validity to claims that often the issue is not resource availability but rather resource distribution. Admittedly, addressing issues subject to progressive realization is not easy. It requires grappling with difficult normative and policy problems related to resource constraints and trade-offs, as well as delving into data. These are not typically areas of human rights expertise. Nevertheless, the human rights movement is now mature enough to overcome these challenges.
Keywords: accountability, available resources, economic and social rights, monitoring, progressive realization, quantitative methods