Book Notes

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Textbook, Second Revised Edition. Edited by Asbjørn Eide, Catarina Krause, and Allan Rosas. The Hague, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2001. Pp. 785. $184.00, cloth.

Economic, social and cultural rights have historically received much less attention from member states, UN bodies, and NGOs than have civil and political rights, despite the fact that both families of rights are repeatedly affirmed in UN documents as being indivisible and interdependent. This collection provides a welcome addition to this neglected area within human rights law. It analyzes and criticizes the lesser status of economic, social, and cultural rights within the international legal community, and also provides persuasive and well-researched suggestions for bolstering the status of these rights.

Edited by three Scandinavian human rights scholars, this book contains thirty-two chapters by prominent researchers and human rights leaders, including Katarina Tomaševski, currently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Sandra Liebenberg, a leading South African scholar, and co-editor Asbjørn Eide, a member of the UN Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights. This book covers a broad spectrum of subjects in this sphere of human rights law, including the right to development, the right to health, and the right to education, as well as strategies for implementing and fully realizing these rights. This second edition also includes new chapters on topics not contained in the first edition (published in 1995), including an examination of how multinational enterprises affect these rights, and how these rights can best be protected in domestic legal systems.

The intended audience for this book is a global one, but this compilation may be especially helpful for those in the United States who have had little exposure to the body of international law that addresses issues of economic, social, and cultural rights. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is an essential resource for scholars and activists working for the advancement of economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as those working on grassroots, anti-poverty work who would like to expand their organizing strategies to include more of a rights-based approach.

The book’s first section explores the concepts and principles that make up the body of international law known as economic, social, and cultural rights. The first section explores the major debates relating to the legal entrenchment of this “family” of human rights, including claims that they are not and should not be justiciable rights like civil and political rights, and that to do so would require an inappropriate incursion of the judicial branch into the realm of legislative policy-making. These claims are tackled head on and persuasively rebutted by Eide, Liebenberg, and other contributors. The common conclusion of this first set of chapters is that there is nothing inherently different about the core set of rights known as economic, social, and cultural rights that necessitates or justifies their inferior status in interna-

tional human rights law. On the contrary, these chapters provide the theoretical support for the equal protection and advancement of these rights, both on ideological and practical grounds.

The second section of this collection considers the core substantive rights which typically fall under the rubric of economic, social, and cultural rights. Each of the chapters focuses on a separate basic right, such as the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to food, and the relevant international standards are explored and state obligations explained under existing obligations. The authors also discuss the challenges of setting attainable indicators and benchmarks, as well as the difficulties of formulating country-specific minimum thresholds for the different basic human rights.

The third section of the textbook considers particular groups for whom and contexts in which the enforcement and realization of economic, social, and cultural rights is most essential. While everyone is equally entitled to enjoy these rights, this section illustrates that violations of economic, social, and cultural rights often have a disproportionate impact upon certain groups. In this section, contributors turn their attention to children, indigenous peoples, migrant workers, and women as the critical beneficiaries of these rights. There is also a chapter on the importance of protecting economic, social, and cultural rights in situations of armed conflict.

The fourth and final section of this compilation considers how these rights can be most effectively implemented and realized. The authors address the many obstacles that often arise when trying to make real progress on implementing international human rights standards so that to people on the ground they are more than merely ideological wish lists. This section tackles both the promise and limitations of existing implementation mechanisms and remedies for violations of these rights, also suggesting strategies for improving the enjoyment of these fundamental human rights.

This collection would serve as a comprehensive textbook for a course on international human rights or legal approaches to tackling poverty, but it also reads as a collection of discrete essays on the status of economic and social justice issues within international law. The chapters are well organized, making it easy to navigate through technical references to various UN treaty provisions and other documents. The detailed footnotes and an abbreviations list are also helpful. With all of the useful extras included in this edition, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is an invaluable reference tool. The annexes to the book include the major international guidelines pertaining to economic, social, and cultural rights, and selected general comments issued by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. The editors have also included a table of treaties relevant to these rights for easy reference. The more than thirty-page bibliography at the end is also a very useful starting point for those who wish to do more research in this area.

While this anthology is a bit of an investment, for individuals, organizations, and institutions working on these issues who can afford to add it to

their library, it is a must-have. It is simply the most comprehensive work available on the importance of protecting and promoting economic, social, and cultural rights.

—Katherine Wiik

Copyright © 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 16, Spring 2003