Talk:Economic, social and cultural rights

original social rights article
The original social rights article was a complete fabrication, with no references, confusing civil and political rights with economic, social and cultural rights.--SasiSasi (talk) 19:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

What to do with this article?
I'm making it kind of a pet project to mine to try to better-organize the various articles about rights, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to fit this article with respect to the others. It appears to have originally existed in contrast to Civil and political rights, that category and this category being a common way of dividing the Universal declaration of human rights and lists of rights in general. However, Civil and political rights currently redirects to plain old Civil rights, which seems to distinguish itself from Human rights in that the former are rights held in virtue of being a member of a particular polity while the latter are rights held in virtue of just being a human. Between all that, Wikipedia gives the appearance that civil rights are both a subset of human rights, contrasted with economic, social and cultural rights, and also something contrasting with human rights. This is the paradox I'm trying to dissolve.

Since this article is so stubby to begin with, I'm tempted to say we should just incorporate the unique information in it into other related articles. But I'm open to other suggestions. Thoughts? -Pfhorrest (talk) 00:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I'm thinking that juxtaposing civil rights with human rights is redundant with the natural and legal rights articles, and this article would better serve in juxtaposition to Civil and political rights. That currently just redirects to Civil rights simpliciter, but I'm about to propose on that article's talk page that it be renamed and expanded to cover that topic. I'll add something to the intro here referring there for contrast. -Pfhorrest (talk) 08:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Jusiticiability as debate
Since there is no consensus as to whether ESC rights are fully justiciable, perhaps the relevant section of this article should refer to the debate on this topic, rather than assert only that these rights are fully justiciable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.66.169.174 (talk) 09:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Connective clause between this and Civil and political rights
There have been, over time, a number of edits to the connective clause in the first sentence of the lede, referencing this article's sister article on Civil and political rights. As I originally wrote it, I believe I used the phrase "as contrasted with", meaning to reference the common division of the UDHR into these two categories of rights (viz. the ICCPR and ICESCR).

Another editor later took objection to that as POV, biased against the position that economic, social, and cultural rights are an inseparable part of the whole that is human rights, and changed the connective clause to something like "inseparable from". I found that to be POV in the opposite direction, and we eventually settled on "compare with". Today, User:Lapsed Pacifist changed it to "as opposed to", which seems to be interpretable as POV of the manner earlier complained of.

In the interest of maintaining NPOV, I've changed it to "as distinguished from"; I'm hoping the positive connotations of "distinguished" will keep people from thinking the article places economic, social, and cultural rights as subordinate to civil and political rights (which would be POV), while still indicating the common division of human rights into these two categories.

However, I thought it might be wise to open up a discussion here on the exact ideal wording. Thoughts? --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "As distinct from" sounds slightly better to me. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 07:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That was actually my first though to change it to, but I thought the double-meaning of "distinguished" (either a synonym for "distinct", or a superlative) might subtly ward off complaints from the rights-are-an-indivisible-whole camp (which I am not a part of, for the record). But if you'd like to change it I won't object, and this talk thread is here now for anyone who does. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool. Distinct it is. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * i have added the link to civil and political rights to the section on genreations of rights. so its now:


 * According to Karel Vasak's theory of three generations of human rights, economic, social and cultural rights are considered second-generation rights, while civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech, due process, and the right to vote, are considered first-genreation rights. . The theory of negative and positive rights considers ESC rights positive rights.


 * it now mirrors the intro to civil and political rights, which in the last para states:


 * Civil and political rights comprise the first portion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.


 * --92.4.70.219 (talk) 18:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Theory of rights
T.H. Marshall established the distinction between civil, political, and social/economic rights in his essay Citizenship and Social Class (1949). I believe that it would be useful to include him in this section, as his theory of social citizenship was applied to human rights shortly after it was written by Norberto Bobbio, and was essentially very similar to Vasak's conceptual model, according to the book Human Rights in the Twentieth Century by Stefan-Ludgwig Hoffman (2011: pg. 17). Marshall was involved with UNESCO between 1956-60 as head of the Social Sciences department, and may have had influence in the final document of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed by the USA in 1966.undergroundman 06:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikem1234 (talk • contribs)