Previous openGlobalRights authors have noted that we need more empirical research – and less ideological argumentation – on the impact of economic and social rights. The research literature has largely ignored these rights, however, leading Shareen Hertel to lament that economic and social rights “have remained the poor step-sister to other types of human rights research, scholarship, and advocacy.”
More specifically, few scholars have studied the empirical effects of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the main linchpin of the international economic and social rights regime.
This reluctance is part historical: during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its satellites emphasized economic and social rights, whereas the United States and its allies championed civil and political rights. It is also partly due to considerations of expense. Many believe that only the wealthier countries of the global North, and not the poorer nations of the global South, have the resources to realize economic and social rights.
