Economic and Social Rights in National Constitutions

Bibliographic Data

ID5022015
AuthorsCourtney Jung (University of Toronto), Ran Hirschl (0000-0002-3025-8040, University of Toronto), Evan Rosevear (University of Toronto)
Year2014
Volume1
Issue1
Pagesi-42
Publication date2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe American Journal of Comparative Law (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-919X • E-ISSN: 2326-9197
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5131/ajcl.2014.0012
OpenAlexW4232849798
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited2

Much has been written about the global convergence on constitutional supremacy, and the corresponding rise of an apparently universal constitutional discourse, primarily visible in the context of rights. In this paper, we examine the global constitutional homogeneity claim with respect to economic and social rights. Based on a new and unique dataset that identifies the status of seventeen distinct economic and social rights in the world's constitutions (195 in total), we make four arguments. First, although economic and social rights have grown increasingly common in national constitutions, not all ESRs are equally widespread. Whereas a right to education is so common as to be practically universal, rights to food or water are still very rare. Second, constitutions accord ESRs different statuses, or strengths. Roughly one third of countries identify all economic and social rights as justiciable, another third identify all ESRs as aspirational, and the last third identify some ESRs as aspirational and some as justiciable. Third, legal tradition - whether a country has a tradition of civil, common, Islamic or customary law - is a strong predictor of whether a constitution will have economic and social rights and whether those rights will be justiciable. Fourth, whereas regional differences partly confound the explanatory power of legal traditions, region and legal tradition retain an independent effect on constitutional entrenchment of ESR. We conclude by suggesting that despite the prevalence of economic and social rights in national constitutions, as of 2013 there is still considerable variance with respect to the formal status, scope and nature of such rights. Because the divergence reflects lasting determinants such as legal tradition and region, it is likely to persist

Art · Economics · Göran · Human rights · Humanities · Law and economics · Library science · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social rights · Sociology · Computer Science · Human Rights and Development · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Ombudsman and Human Rights

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access