Changing perspectives on human rights Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Edited by Doutje Lettinga & Lars van Troost illustratie? Changing perspectives on human rights 1 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Strategic Studies initiated by Amnesty International Netherlands Published in October 2015 by Amnesty International Netherlands ISBN: 978-90-6463-370-6 Cover image: Spanish protest against the Euro zone leaders, agreed Pact for the Euro, the cutbacks in the social policy and the economic crisis in Barcelona on 19 June 2011. © Peter Scholz/Shutterstock.com Changing perspectives on human rights 2 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Changing perspectives on human rights Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Edited by Doutje Lettinga & Lars van Troost Changing perspectives on human rights 3 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Also in this series: Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (eds), Debating The Endtimes of Human Rights. Activism and Institutions in a Neo-Westphalian World, July 2014. www.amnesty.nl/endtimes Thijs van Lindert and Doutje Lettinga (eds), The future of human rights in an urban world. Exploring opportunities, threats and challenges, September 2014. www.amnesty.nl/urbanworld Other publications by Strategic Studies: Thijs van Lindert and Lars van Troost (eds), Shifting power and human rights diplomacy: Brazil, November 2014. www.amnesty.nl/RisingPowerBrazil Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (eds), Shifting power and human rights diplomacy: India, March 2015. www.amnesty.nl/RisingPowerIndia Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (eds), Shifting Power and Human Rights Diplomacy: South Africa (forthcoming) Strategic Studies is an initiative of Amnesty International Netherlands. Since 2013 Strategic Studies has been mapping out national and international social, political and legal developments which can affect the future of human rights and the work of Amnesty International in particular. Contact: [email protected]. Changing perspectives on human rights 4 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Table of Contents List of authors and editors 7 Justice over rights? 71 Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost Introduction 9 Advancing social justice through human rights: Human rights and the age of inequality 13 the experience of Amnesty International 79 Samuel Moyn Ashfaq Khalfan and Iain Byrne How human rights can address socioeconomic inequality 19 Human rights and social justice – a false dichotomy? 89 Dan Chong David Petrasek Seeking socioeconomic justice 27 References 95 Widney Brown Dear fellow jurists, human rights are about politics, and that’s perfectly fine 35 Koldo Casla Back to the future: human rights protection beyond the rights approach 41 Eduardo Salvador Arenas Catalán Human rights and social justice: separate causes 47 Aryeh Neier Against a human rights-based approach to social justice 53 Jacob Mchangama Will human rights help us get social justice? 59 Sara Burke How are social justice and human rights related? Four traps to avoid 65 Rolf Künnemann Changing perspectives on human rights 5 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Changing perspectives on human rights 6 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays List of Authors and Editors Eduardo Salvador Arenas Catalán (LLM) is a PhD candidate lead responsibility for litigation work on economic and at the Montaigne Center for Judicial Administration at social rights. Since 2000 he has been a Fellow of the the Law Department of the University of Utrecht. He also Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He has co-chairs both the PhD Council and the Working Group on been involved in litigation in domestic fora across the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the Netherlands Commonwealth and beyond, and before the European School of Human Rights Research. Committee of Social Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. Widney Brown is the Director of Programs for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an NGO that brings the disciplines Koldo Casla is a Doctoral candidate at King’s College of medicine, forensics, public health, and science to the London, studying why Western European states promote documentation of human rights abuses. Prior to joining PHR international human rights law from the combined in 2014, Brown was Senior Director of Law and Policy at the perspectives of Critical Legal Studies and the English International Secretariat of Amnesty International for eight School of International Relations. He is also a freelance years. Brown also served a variety of roles at Human Rights human rights consultant, blogger at RIGHTS in context, Watch including as Deputy Program Director, where she was and active member of Amnesty International since 2001. responsible for overseeing the work of both regional and thematic programs. Dan Chong is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rollins College (USA). His first book, Freedom from Poverty Sara Burke researches and writes on US domestic and (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), examines the international politics and economics. Recent areas of interest methods that NGOs use to advocate for economic and include human rights, inequality, social justice movements social rights. His recent book, Debating Human Rights and the reform of monetary, financial and fiscal policies. (Lynne Rienner, 2014), explores major controversies in Burke is a Senior expert in charge of global economic and international human rights. social policy issues at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) New York office, the Foundation’s liaison to the United Nations, Ashfaq Khalfan is the Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. International’s International Secretariat (IS). He was a member of the ESCR Team at the IS from November 2009 Iain Byrne is acting Head of the ESCR team within to July 2015, first as a Policy Coordinator focusing on the Global Thematics Programme at the International legal enforcement and then as a Researcher/Adviser on Secretariat (IS) of Amnesty International. Previously he obligations beyond borders. He has previously directed held various positions at the International Centre for the the Right to Water Programme at the Centre on Housing Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS), including Rights and Evictions and worked for the Canadian Federal acting Legal Practice Director and Senior Lawyer with Department of Justice and the Canadian Human Rights Changing perspectives on human rights 7 Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays Can human rights bring social justice? Twelve essays List of Authors and Editors Commission. He holds a doctoral degree in law from Oxford Aryeh Neier is President Emeritus of the Open Society University, and law degrees in common and civil law and a Foundations and Distinguished Visiting Professor at degree in political science and international development the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po. from McGill University. Previously he was Executive Director of Human Rights Watch and Executive Director of the American Civil Rolf Künnemann is Human Rights Director at FIAN Liberties Union. A contributor to many publications, his International’s secretariat. Since 2007 he has been most recent book is The International Human Rights coordinating the Consortium on Extraterritorial Obligations Movement: A History (Princeton University Press, 2012). (ETO-Consortium). In this context he was co-editor (with Fons Coomans) of Cases and Concepts on Extraterritorial David Petrasek is Associate Professor at the Graduate Obligations in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultual School of Public and International Affairs, University Rights (Intersentia, 2012). He authored Food and Freedom, of Ottawa and was formerly Special Adviser to the a Textbook on Human Rights Education (Progress Trust, Secretary General of Amnesty International. He has worked Madurai, 1999). Rolf Künnemann was Secretary General of extensively on human rights, humanitarian and conflict FIAN International between 1986 and 2004. resolution issues, including for Amnesty International (1990-96), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Doutje Lettinga is an analyst at Strategic Studies, an Human Rights (1997-98), the International Council on initiative of Amnesty International Netherlands. She holds Human Rights Policy (1998-2002), and as Director of Policy a doctorate in Sociology at the VU University Amsterdam at the HD Centre (2003-07). He has taught international and has master’s degrees in History and Political Science. human rights and/or humanitarian law courses at the Prior to joining Amnesty, Lettinga worked as a researcher Osgoode Hall Law School, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute at and consultant, including for Human Rights Watch, the EU Lund University, Sweden, and at Oxford University. He has Fundamental Rights Agency, and the European Commission. also worked as a consultant or adviser to several NGOs and UN agencies. Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of Justitia, a think tank in Copenhagen focusing on human Lars van Troost is Senior Policy and Strategy Adviser at rights and the rule of law. He is also co-founder and Amnesty International Netherlands (AINL), where he leads director of the Freedom Rights Project, an international Strategic Studies.