The Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions: Responding to Complex Global Challenges(Oñati International Series in Law and Society)

What does the right to the continuous improvement of living conditions in Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights really mean and how can it contribute to social change? The book explores how this underdeveloped right can have valuable application in response to global problems of poverty, inequality and climate destruction, through an in-depth consideration of its meaning. The book seeks to interpret and give meaning to the right as a legal standard, giving it practical value for those whose living conditions are inadequate. It locates the right within broader philosophical and political debates, whilst also assessing the challenges to its realisation. It also explores how the right relates to human rights more generally and considers its application to issues of gender, care and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The contributors deeply probe the meaning of 'living conditions', suggesting that these encompass more than the basic rights to housing, water, food, and clothing. The chapters provide a range of doctrinal, historical and philosophical engagements through grounded analysis and imaginative interpretation. With a foreword by Sandra Liebenberg (former Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the book includes chapters from renowned and emerging scholars working across disciplines from around the world.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Sandra Liebenberg (Stellenbosch University, South Africa) 1. Introduction: Situating the Right to Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions and Considering its Interpretations and Applications Jessie Hohmann (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) and Beth Goldblatt (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) 2. Sources for A Nascent Interpretation of the Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions: The Travaux Préparatoires and the Work of the CESCR Jessie Hohmann (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) 3. Cooperating to Continuously Improve Meghan Campbell (University of Birmingham, UK) 4. The Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions as a Response to Poverty Luke D Graham (Coventry University, UK) 5. Is Financial Inclusion a Proxy for Continuously Improving Living Conditions? Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky (Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Argentina) and Francisco Cantamutto (National University of the South, Argentina) 6. The Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions and Progressive Realisation: The Case of the Right to Social Security in Canada Lucie Lamarche (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada) 7. Understanding Forgotten Rights Naomi Lott (University of Nottingham, UK) 8. The Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions and Human Rights of Future Generations – A Circle Impossible to Square? Sigrun I Skogly (Lancaster University, UK) 9. New Synergies and Possibilities in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: From Dignified Life to the Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions Isaac de Paz González (Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico) 10. (Dis)Continuous Improvement: Canada, Indigenous Peoples, Lobster and Child Welfare Jeffery Hewitt (York University, Canada) 11. The Work of Living - Social Reproduction and the Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions Beth Goldblatt (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) 12. Measure for Measure: The Challenges of Measuring Continuous Improvement and Lessons from the Sustainable Development Goals Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford, UK) 13. Entangled Rights and Reproductive Temporality: Legal Form, Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions, and Social Reproduction Ruth Fletcher (Queen Mary University of London, UK)

About the Author :
Jessie Hohmann is Associate Professor and Beth Goldblatt is Professor, both in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Review :
In addressing a long-neglected element of international human rights law ... this ground-breaking volume makes a key contribution to human rights scholarship. The excellent essays advance understanding in multiple scholarly areas, including the theory and implementation of economic and social rights, sustainable development, economic equality and the aims and achievements of the post-WW2 human rights project. This important book will be a must-read for academics, activists and policy-makers working in these areas. The right to the continuous improvement of living conditions has been neglected in the past, and risks being ridiculed in a future in which the need to save the planet from uninhabitability will require radically different economic strategies and approaches to growth. This book brilliantly rescues the concept and shows how it could and should become central to the most pressing debates in the human rights field. As the first piece of scholarship dedicated to an extensive investigation of this neglected right, The Right to Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions offers an extremely novel and valuable contribution to not only the field of socioeconomic rights, but international rights discourse more broadly.