The second major covenant derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, intended to make states responsible for providing human rights falling under what might be termed “quality of life” categories.
Some countries, like the United States, emphasize civil and political rights over economic, social, and cultural rights. The thinking is that without civil and political rights, how can any country promote economic rights? Should the human rights focus be on civil and political guarantees, with other rights then naturally following, with no requirement to “guarantee” those rights? Some countries, whose economic status may be barely above the subsistence level, struggle to guarantee freedom of speech, free elections, and other political rights. How can these countries provide economic rights to their residents? Should they be labeled as violators of human rights if they cannot provide adequate food for all their residents? These are some of the questions and issues that arise when examining the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
Economic and Social Human Rights:
Mere Distractions?
The Economist newsweekly has never been a supporter of elevating economic and social needs to the level of human rights. Its view, as well as that of probably many others, is that these types of “rights” dilute the traditional focus of human rights on political and civil rights:
Food, jobs and housing are certainly necessities. But no useful purpose is served by calling them “rights.” When a government locks someone up without a fair trial, the victim, perpetrator and remedy are pretty clear. This clarity seldom applies to social and economic “rights.” It is hard enough to determine whether such a right has been infringed, let alone who should provide a remedy, or how. Who should be educated in which subjects for how long at what cost in taxpayers’ money is a political question best settled at the ballot box. So is how much to spend on what kind of health care.
. . . For people in the poor world, as for people everywhere, the most reliable method yet invented to ensure that governments provide people with social and economic necessities is called politics. That is why the rights that make open politics possible—free speech, due process, protection from arbitrary punishment—are so precious. Insisting on their enforcement is worth more than any number of grandiloquent but unenforceable declarations demanding jobs, education and housing for all. (Economist 2007, 12)
When discussing economic, social, and cultural human rights, The Economist’s viewpoint should be considered. In the history of contemporary human rights, the lack of economic and social rights had much to do with the creation of dictatorships in Germany and other countries. During the Great Depression, one of the events leading up to World War II, even the United States had to pay attention to its residents’ economic and social welfare and consequently created work projects and other economic assistance programs. To use The Economist’s proposed resolution of social and economic necessities, “politics” in the form of government programs laid the foundation for the remedy. Government therefore does have a role in providing social and economic benefits. The extent of those benefits can be minimal but available, with the government being the provider of last resort.
It is difficult to separate economic and social human rights from political and civil rights. The Economist is correct in saying that providing economic and social rights is trickier than providing political and civil rights. But neither group should be subordinate to the other, as the deprivation of one can easily lead to the deprivation of the other. Nonetheless, a more economically and socially secure country may find it easier to allow greater political and civil rights where they have been deficient.
Human rights principles may present conflicting views. The priority of human rights constantly encounters differing opinions, with no area of debate greater than the ranking of various rights. Unfortunately, though, attempts to rank human rights by importance often become meaningless exercises.
Preamble
The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights is made up of a preamble and thirty-one articles that cover various human rights relating to economic, social, and cultural conditions. The preamble resembles that in the covenant on political and civil human rights: Those states party to the covenant recognize that the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if the conditions are created in which all people can enjoy their economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as their civil and political rights. These states recognize that the rights under the covenant derive from the inherent dignity of the human person and that the individual, having duties to other individuals and to the community to which he or she belongs, is responsible for promoting and observing the rights recognized in the covenant.
The preamble makes clear that the covenant is applicable to states and is not a general declaration of intent or aspiration. That is, those countries that accept the document must carry out its provisions. The intent of the covenant is to place economic, social, and cultural rights on the same level as political and civil rights, which has not always been the case in many countries, including the United States.
Initial Articles
Before listing specific human rights concerning economic, social, and cultural conditions, the covenant states that all peoples have the right of self-determination (art.1, para. 1). As part of this self-determination, people can freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. The states shall promote the realization of self-determination but also may monitor human rights violations in other states (art. 3, para. 3). A state criticizing another state for human rights violations can easily be accused of human rights violations itself. Accordingly, evaluation of human rights violations requires thought and knowledge about human rights documents and sensitivity to differing ways of life.
Each state that approves the covenant must take steps to realize its rights by all appropriate means, such as adopting laws to promote these rights (art. 2, para. 1). With due regard to human rights and their national economy, less economically developed countries may determine the extent to which they will guarantee to noncitizens the economic rights recognized in the covenant (art. 2, para. 3). In other words, less economically developed countries may favor citizens over residents in the guarantee of economic rights, provided that those countries respect other human rights. This provision applies only to developing countries and to economic—not social and cultural—rights. Under this article, the public assistance law passed by the United States in 1996 would probably be a human rights violation, as that law favors citizens over legal immigrants in determining qualifications for economic benefits (Reichert and McCormick 1998). The U.S. Senate has not ratified this covenant, however, and legal challenges to the U.S. law have generally failed (Kim 2001).
States may limit rights in the covenant in times of economic crisis, but only if the limitation promotes the general welfare (art. 4). If a state’s economic resources are insufficient to satisfy all economic rights listed in the covenant, it may limit its guarantee of those rights.
The Covenant’s Approach to Economic Human Rights
Those who criticize the covenant on economic and social rights should examine the initial articles allowing exceptions to the provision of economic rights when resources are insufficient to satisfy those rights. The idea that a country must bankrupt itself trying to provide all types of economic rights just to meet its obligations under the covenant is pure nonsense. The writers of this covenant knew that economic times could be difficult and that countries could, and most likely would, have difficulty satisfying economic rights during these times.
Countries are free to develop their own economic systems, whether capitalism, socialism, or, most prevalent, capitalism, with some government regulation and intervention. The view that government must impose a heavy hand in providing housing, health care, education, and other benefits listed in the covenant does not match reality. Rather, what the covenant aims to do is create a mind-set that individuals and their economic security are important. Promoting economic security often requires public assistance for those individuals who are unable to meet their basic needs, and distinguishing between deserving and undeserving individuals should have no part in meeting basic human rights.
Articles Listing Specific Rights
The covenant lists the following as economic, social, and cultural human rights:
• Article 6, para. 1: Everyone shall have the opportunity to gain his or her living by work that the person freely chooses or accepts. States need to take appropriate steps to safeguard this right.
• Article 6, para. 2: States must provide technical and vocational guidance, training programs, and policies and techniques to achieve economic, social, and cultural development and full and productive employment. In taking these steps, the states must safeguard individual political and economic freedoms.
Obviously, resources must be available to establish and staff programs to enhance development and employment. The difficulty is that world economic conditions may not be conducive to providing the items listed in this article. A global recession may inhibit employment possibilities in any country.
• Article 7: States must recognize the right of everyone to enjoy just and favorable conditions of work. These conditions require fair and equal remuneration for work of equal value without distinction. Women are guaranteed conditions of work equal to those enjoyed by men, and workers should receive a “decent living.” Additional rights include safe and healthy working conditions; equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted in employment to an appropriate higher level, subject to seniority and competence; and rest, leisure, and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays.
States with insufficient resources may have difficulty promoting these rights. Even in the United States, requiring an employer to pay a “living wage” would meet with resistance from employers, many of which would probably shut down rather than increase wages. In some countries, many of these rights may not be part of the culture. In a society whose leaders are chosen based on family lineage, cultural norms would obviously clash with the requirement to promote workers only on the basis of seniority and competence. Even so, promoting safe working conditions, reasonable compensation within local economic circumstances, and equal pay are worthwhile goals for all countries.
Human Right to Productive Work
The human right to productive work raises all types of issues, with perhaps the most obvious being the ability to pay an individual a wage sufficient to live within his or her means. For instance, in 1996 the U.S. government enacted new welfare laws that focused on work as a requirement to receive governmental assistance (Reichert and McCormick 1997). In addition, with some exceptions, those laws limited many individuals to only five years of public assistance during their lifetime. The overall effect of the new U.S. welfare laws has been a significant reduction in welfare recipients, even during the 2009 economic downturn (Deparle 2009).
U.S. welfare laws have indeed decreased the number of welfare recipients, but this “success” story has an inescapable irony. Although the number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has dropped significantly, the number of enrollees in other programs, such as Medicaid, food assistance, and disability benefits, has increased (Ohlemacher 2007). Many of the jobs taken by those who no longer receive cash assistance do not offer health care benefits or pay enough to meet day-to-day living expenses. Therefore, to assist those individuals, governments have expanded eligibility for programs like Medicaid and food assistance. Moreover, the number of Americans living in extreme poverty has never been higher. This growth in extreme poverty demonstrates how hard it is for low-skilled workers to earn their way out of poverty in a job market that favors skilled and educated workers (McClatchy Newspapers 2007).
The failure to earn enough to increase living standards is not merely a U.S. phenomenon. In Britain, a study found that even though the majority of children living in poverty have at least one working parent, he or she is not earning enough to raise the family above the poverty line (Gentleman 2009). This raises the question: Does the move to get people off welfare actually result in individuals’ obtaining work that provides sufficient income to survive? Some groups would say no.
The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and other groups have charged the U.S. government with human rights violations caused by the 1996 welfare “reform” act (Bricker-Jenkins, Young, and Honkala 2007; Zucchino 2001). This campaign is a national effort led by poor and homeless women, men, and children to make the issue of poverty in the United States a human rights violation. The campaign fights for “basic human rights” as provided in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to a decent job at a living wage, the right to a suitable home, the right to food, the guarantee of quality education and quality health care, and a future for individuals and families. The purpose of this movement is to provide sufficient resources to the poor in order to fulfill basic human rights. Perhaps the most important part of this movement is providing what is known as a “living wage”—in other words, an income that is sufficient to support the family or household. Merely being able to obtain work does not mean that an individual can make ends meet.
Does paying a higher wage to individuals reduce the availability of jobs? Fears that substantial pay increases would lead to a decrease in employment may not always be justified (Wood 2002). The Public Policy Institute of California examined thirty-six cities in the United States that have imposed a living wage on contractors doing business with those cities. This study found that the slight job losses caused by living wage laws were more than compensated by the decrease in family poverty (Wood 2002, 4). More study of the living wage issue is necessary, however, before concluding that higher wages do not lead to job losses. The type of employment (e.g., employment not easily shifted to other countries) may help determine whether or not a living wage is feasible.
Welfare laws that require work should try to satisfy the human rights to productive work and other related human rights. Simply obtaining any type of work would not necessarily be regarded as a success: indeed, work that did not provide sufficient income to meet basic human needs would fall far short of the intended mark.
• Article 8: States must “undertake to ensure” that everyone has the right to form and join a trade union, subject to restrictions necessary in a democratic society to preserve national security, public order, and the rights of others. Union members have the right to strike, with allowable restrictions on members of the state’s armed forces, police, and administration.
• Article 9: States recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance. The article does not define social security or social insurance but certainly intends that states provide a level of security sufficient to enable an individual to maintain a basic existence.
• Article 10: States should protect the family, “which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society.” The article also declares that marriage must be entered into with the free consent of the intending spouses. Before or after childbirth, working mothers should be “accorded paid leave or leave with adequate social security benefits.” States should protect children from economic and social exploitation and prohibit the paid employment of children below a set age.
• Article 11: States recognize the right of all people to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their family, including adequate food, clothing, and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. In satisfying these human rights, states should recognize the “essential importance of international co-operation.” They must establish programs to improve methods of food production and attempt to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.
Different Approaches to Social Welfare:
United States and Europe
When a German factory worker lost his job in the economic downturn of 2008/2009, his unemployed status did not stop him from taking a Mediterranean vacation. The German government provided sufficient benefits that allowed the worker to maintain a standard of living that did not differ much from that he enjoyed while working. These benefits would continue for more than a year. In the United States, a worker who lost a similar job would have no comparable government assistance and could not expect to keep her medical coverage or even her unemployment benefits for more than several months (Walker and Thurow 2009).
A drawback to Europe’s generous social welfare benefits is that employers, who must help fund these benefits through individual payroll taxes, are more reluctant to rehire workers than are employers in the United States. But from a human rights viewpoint, the European system is clearly more humane and within the spirit of the covenant on economic rights.
• Article 12: States recognize the right of “everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” The states should take steps to reduce infant mortality; improve environmental and industrial hygiene; prevent, treat, and control diseases; and create conditions that would ensure medical services for everyone in the event of sickness.
Although these goals are laudable and should not be objectionable to any country, guaranteeing health care to all citizens and residents remains a difficult issue in the United States.
Failing to Provide Health Care to All
Violates Human Rights Principles
The United States remains the sole industrialized country that does not guarantee basic medical care to all its citizens and legal residents. Some people may point out that everyone can receive care by simply going to a hospital’s emergency room. Of course, anyone who relies on emergency rooms for routine medical care knows the absurdity of this notion. Waiting times, extraordinary costs—the patient still must pay—and no follow-up treatment are only some of the drawbacks. The reality is that because of these and other obstacles, many uninsured peole fail to seek medical treatment when they should. Indeed, one study has found that 45 million Americans die each year because of a lack of health insurance (Wilper et al. 2009).
The U.S. Medicaid program for low-income residents does cover medical treatment for some, including many children. But many do not qualify for this medical coverage, and even if they do, some aspects of medical treatment, like dental and mental health care, are deficient.
Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday. A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.
If his mother had been insured.
If his family had not lost its Medicaid.
If Medicaid dentists weren’t so hard to find.
If his mother had not been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.
By the time Deamonte’s own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, [Deamonte] died. (Otto 2007)
This incident highlights not only the deficiency of medical coverage but also the limits of that coverage. Yet because the U.S. system requires public hospitals to treat everyone, costs that could be minimal if treated early become major expenses when treated later. Deamonte’s final medical and hospital costs were estimated to be as much as $250,000, an amount that does not even begin to consider the cost of Deamonte’s life and what his death meant to his family.
The failure of the United States to establish universal, basic medical coverage defies reason. Even from a purely economic cost analysis, the lack of universal coverage can increase the ultimate medical cost. But the real tragedy lies in the human suffering caused when the uninsured individual fails to obtain timely and necessary health care. Most cases do not end so tragically as Deamonte’s, but this does not excuse ignoring the human right to adequate medical care.
• Article 13: States are to provide education, which has the primary goal of fully developing “the human personality and the sense of its dignity” and enabling everyone to participate effectively in a free society. Primary education shall be compulsory and free, with secondary and higher education being accessible to all, subject to available means. While not requiring free secondary and higher education, states should progressively introduce free education on these levels. States also should allow parents the freedom to place their children in private schools that meet minimum educational standards.
The human right of education occupies a central position in human rights principles. Without education, an individual’s full development is not possible.
The Human Right to Education:
Are All Things Equal?
The United States prides itself on offering everyone a decent primary and secondary education. The purpose of the so-called No Child Left Behind law is to increase the educational achievement of elementary and high school students to a uniformly high level so that no pupil is at a disadvantage in his or her workplace after school. Although many students continue their education after secondary school, those who do not should still be able to use their educational skills to find employment and, on a broader scale, to integrate well into society.
On an international level, a disturbing trend is appearing in regard to U.S. students’ educational performance. Every three years, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures fifteen-year-olds’ performance in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. In 2006, fifty-seven countries participated in the PISA assessment for science and mathematics. Science literacy is measured by a student’s ability to identify scientific issues, apply his or her knowledge of science to a given situation, interpret scientific evidence, and make reasonable conclusions. Mathematics literacy refers to an understanding of mathematics and the ability to use it constructively (National Center for Education Statistics 2007).
How did the United States fare in the science and mathematics part of the 2006 PISA? Fifteen-year-old students in the United States had an average score of 489 on the combined science literary scale, which was below the 500 point average of all the countries tested. The results for mathematics were similar: the average U.S. score in mathematics literacy was 474, lower than the country average of 498. Within the United States, white, non-Hispanic students scored the highest, with African Americans and Hispanic students scoring the lowest.
There are many reasons for their relatively poor performance. Resources and methods of teaching may have the greatest relevance in improving educational outcomes. The unequal distribution of resources for elementary and secondary education in many parts of the United States give wealthy suburban schools a head start in education, as well as a home life that nurtures education. In Illinois, the state government guarantees a minimum level of state funds per pupil, with local support primarily from property tax assessments providing additional funding. This system practically guarantees an economic class–based form of funding for education. Schools located in wealthy Chicago and suburban areas allocate around 50 percent more funding per pupil than do the schools in the lower-income areas of southern Illinois (Illinois Kids Count 2009). This discrepancy in funding most likely affects the quality of equipment, books, and other teaching tools that a school district can afford. Teaching facilities may also be in disrepair where funds are lacking. But money is not the only difficulty. Better teachers, school administrators, and teaching techniques are required as well.
The economic loss to the United States from its failing primary and secondary education is enormous: If the country had raised its educational performance between 1983 and 1998 to that of countries like South Korea or Finland, its output in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher, a gain of about 9 to 16 percent of the gross domestic product (Crook 2009).
Aside from any economic benefits, a focus on improving educational facilities for all students is a human right imperative. Every child should receive a decent education, a human right that the United States has failed to achieve.
• Article 14: States that have not been able to provide free and compulsory primary education are allowed time to accomplish this human right.
• Article 15: States recognize that everyone has the human right to “take part in cultural life” and to “enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.” Everyone has the right to benefit from the “protection” of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production that a person has created.
Article 15 raises important issues concerning the provision of benefits from scientific progress. The protection of material benefits from scientific inventions can conflict with other human rights that guarantee medical care and food. For example, the states must respect patents on medicines to prevent or treat HIV/AIDS, but they also have an obligation to prevent and control diseases. If a country cannot afford to purchase patented drugs to treat a high incidence of AIDS, should that country then try to duplicate the patented drugs without respecting the patent? This issue pits countries whose corporate citizens have produced and patented drugs to treat AIDS against countries that must purchase those drugs, often at great cost. Generally, this results in a conflict between corporations from wealthy countries and governments of less economically developed countries where AIDS affects many individuals. To resolve this and similar conflicts, countries need to cooperate in the scientific and cultural fields.
In summary, economic, social, and cultural benefits focus on five main areas: employment; protection of the family; social security, including adequate food, housing, and medical care; education; and participation in cultural and scientific endeavors. Fulfilling many of the human rights in this covenant present challenges. In fact, some people may question whether these human rights even belong under the human rights umbrella (Economist 2001a, 2001b). The reality, though, is that economic, social, and cultural human rights are just as important as political and civil human rights.
Many countries around the world recognize the need to provide a basic economic and social existence for its residents. The United States stands nearly alone in its insistence on viewing economic rights as goals, not rights. When an American demands a decent standard of living, he or she is viewed as a freeloader begging for an undeserved handout, even though this is simply asking for a basic right to which all humans are entitled by consensus of the international community (Estes 2007). With economic conditions becoming increasingly perilous for many Americans, recognition of economic human rights is imperative.
Final Parts of Covenant
The remaining parts of the covenant address reports and methods of informing others about steps to be taken to ensure its economic, social, and cultural human rights. Compared with the covenant on civil and political rights, this covenant’s monitoring provisions are less stringent. States adopting the economic covenant appear to have more leeway or acceptance in whether they will fulfill its provisions, This additional leeway implicitly acknowledges that many countries, including wealthy countries, may have difficulty fulfilling these human rights.
Social Work Perspective on the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
Many of the human rights listed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights mirror the goals and ethical principles of social workers, although the status of these human rights has never matched that of civil and political rights (Economist 2001b, 18–20). Some Western countries, especially the United States, have never subscribed to the notion that universal rights should include a job, housing, and social security. While many countries promote these human rights as goals, they do not guarantee them.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, although the Senate has never ratified the treaty, as required under the U.S. Constitution, for the covenant to become effective. The difficulty in accepting the covenant is in the guarantee of economic benefits that the United States has traditionally not accepted as a right. For example, the United States does not guarantee health care to every U.S. national and resident. By not providing medical care to every individual, the United States could immediately find itself accused of violating human rights principles. Should this be the case? The Economist magazine made the following response to a movement by Amnesty International to incorporate economic rights into its existing mission of ensuring political rights:
Even if economic and social rights appear to have the same status on paper as civil and political rights, their philosophical grounding is often questioned. Designating a good as a universal human right means that reasonable people believe that under no jurisdiction, and under no circumstances, may that good be justly denied to anybody. Although freedom from torture certainly now falls into this category—arguably due to the efforts of groups like Amnesty—goods such as food and a decent home do not. Governments may intentionally torture their citizens; they do not usually intentionally inflict on them poverty and ill health. The moral imperative to stop poverty or disease is therefore not as convincing as the moral imperative to stop torture. (Economist 2001b, 19)
Perhaps the moral imperative to stop poverty or disease is not as convincing as the moral imperative to stop torture, a position that itself is a question of values. If government policies inflict unnecessary physical suffering on its citizens by not providing adequate food, shelter, or health care, then why should those policies not be condemned as strongly as those permitting torture? The United States has sufficient resources with which to provide every child and adult with adequate health care. Germany and other Western countries do make health care a right, with government policies that provide health care to everyone (Reichert and McCormick 1997). If the United States rarely allowed torture, but many children failed to receive basic health care, would the “moral imperative” be less convincing than if it were the other way around? If U.S. policies intentionally deprive children of basic medical care, what is the moral difference between those children being free from torture but not given adequate medical care?
Elevating the status of economic, social, and cultural rights to those of civil and political rights presents challenges to all countries:
To guarantee civil and political rights is relatively cheap, whereas to guarantee economic and social rights is potentially enormously costly. The cost of ensuring the right to vote, for example, is well-defined: the nature of universal franchise is set out in a century of case law and statute, and the costs of staffing and equipping the ballot are easy to assess. Even when an election turns out to require independent observers, extended court sessions, and a lot of recounting . . ., it is still relatively easy for a democratic government to protect its citizens’ right to vote. Endorsing a universal right to health care, by contrast, seems a sure start to an expensive ride down a slippery slope. Who is to say when a person has had enough money spent on keeping him fit? (Economist 2001b, 20).
Although this position sounds reasonable, what about the costs of not providing sufficient economic and social rights? The United States has one of the highest imprisonment rates in the world by far, and running those prisons costs billions of dollars each year. Additional expenses arise from operating courts, an extensive parole/probation system, and law enforcement agencies, as well as providing restitution to victims of crime (Pew Center on the States 2009). If there is a link between failing to provide economic benefits (such as education, housing, and health care) and a life of crime, then can it really be said that it is cheaper to guarantee mainly political and civil rights? Would it not be less expensive to provide better educational facilities and social assistance programs during the formative years of a person, who, owing to poverty, might grow up to engage in criminal activities, than to fund the huge infusion of government money necessary to run the legal and prison systems?
Social workers should understand the connection between civil and political human rights and economic, social, and cultural human rights. The failure to provide one type of human right can lead to the deprivation of another type. This symbiotic relationship among different sets of human rights contradicts the notion that one set of rights should be favored over another.
Questions
1. Are the human rights listed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as important to an individual as those in the covenant on civil and political rights? Explain your answer.
2. Should “developing countries” receive special treatment in promoting human rights? Give reasons for your answer.
3. Should the U.S. Senate ratify and enact laws to mandate human rights in the covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights?
4. Why is education a human right? Does the method of funding public schools in the United States discriminate between wealthy and less wealthy neighborhoods? If so, should the method of funding be changed? Explain.
5. According to the human rights principles in the covenant on economic rights, should wealthy countries be required to help developing countries?
6. Should everyone have the right to a living wage? Give reasons for your answer.
7. Should legal immigrants in a country be entitled to the same social benefits as its citizens? Does the covenant on economic and social rights require equal treatment?
8. Is the covenant on economic and social rights relevant to the social work profession?
References
Bricker-Jenkins, M., C. Young, and C. Honkala. 2007. Using economic human rights in the movement to end poverty: The Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. In Challenges in Human Rights, ed. Elisabeth Reichert, 122–37. New York: Columbia University Press.
Crook, C. 2009. America’s classroom equality battle. Financial Times, May 11, 9.
The Economist. 2001a. The politics of human rights. August 18–24, p. 9.
——. 2001b. Special report on human rights: Righting wrongs. August 18–24, pp. 18–20.
——. 2007. Stand up for your rights. March 24, p. 12.
Estes, C. 2007. Who’s afraid of economic human rights? Yes! (spring 2007): 32–34.
Kim, R. 2001. Welfare reform and “ineligibles”: Issues of constitutionality and recent court rulings. Social Work: Journal of the National Association of Social Workers 46 (4): 315–23.
McClatchy Newspapers. 2007. 16 million Americans live in deep poverty, census analysis finds. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 25, p. A7.
National Center for Education Statistics. 2007. Highlights from PISA 2006: Performance of U.S. 15-year-old students in science and mathematics literacy in an international context. Available at http://www.nces.ed.gov/surveys/PISA (accessed May 26, 2009).
Reichert, E., and R. McCormick. 1997. Different approaches to child welfare: United States and Germany. Journal of Law and Social Work 7 (1): 17–33.
——. 1998. U.S. welfare law violates human rights of immigrants. Migration World 26 (3): 15–18.
Walker, M., and R. Thurow. 2009. U.S., Europe are ocean apart on human toll of joblessness. Wall Street Journal, May 7, pp. A1, A14.
Wood, D. 2002. “Living wage” laws gain momentum across U.S. Christian Science Monitor, March 15, pp. 1, 4.
Zucchino, D. 2001. Streetfighting woman: The activist issue. Ms. Magazine, April– May, pp. 62–67.