Economic rights are central to the international human rights regime, even if they have received less attention historically (at least in the West). This chapter, and the volume from which it is drawn, investigates the central conceptual, measurement, and policy issues confronting economic...

This paper explores the complex relationship between social movements, courts, and political parties in the recognition and fulfillment of human rights. We analyze social mobilization around the right to food in India since 2001, on the recent emergence of political parties' attention to the...

This paper investigates American public opinion supporting human rights and willingness to engage in economic behavior consistent with such support. We look at three types of rights in particular: freedom of expression, freedom from torture, and the right to a guaranteed minimum standard of...

This paper explores whether constitutional provisions promote fulfillment of economic and social rights. This is accomplished by combining unique data on both enforceable law and directive principles with the Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment Index (SERF Index), which measures government...

This paper builds on the work of the Working Group and High Level Task Force on the Right to Development to devise a set of Right to Development criteria, sub-criteria and operational sub-criteria (indicators) that could be used by international organizations, governments, and civil society to...

The International Covenant for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, ICESCR, commits states to progressively realize the economic and social rights enumerated in the Covenant. This poses a challenge to measurement. It is not enough to assess the extent to which rights are enjoyed in a country or...

This paper adapts the economic and social rights index (ESRF) developed by Fukuda-Parr et. al. (2009) to assess the extent to which each of the 50 U.S. states fulfills the economic and social rights obligations set forth in the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. It...

In response to an increasing demand for rigorous monitoring of state accountability in meeting their human rights obligations, a growing literature on human rights measurement has emerged. Yet there are no widely used indicators or indices of human rights obligations fulfillment. This paper...

Building on previously proposed methodology for an index of economic and social rights fulfillment, this paper presents country scores and rankings based on the Economic and Social Rights Fulfillment Index (ESRF Index). Unlike socio-economic indicators, which are often used as proxies for the...

This paper summarizes findings and conclusions from our application of the Economic and Social Rights Fulfillment Index developed by Fukuda-Parr, Lawson-Remer and Randolph (2009) to the states of Brazil. The key features of this methodology in assessing economic and human rights fulfillment is...