Inequalities are mounting worldwide, even while poverty rates might be declining. Protest movements are calling for systematic and radical changes and international human rights organizations give the impression of being increasingly supportive of such messages and solutions. “Billions of people are suffering from insecurity, injustice and indignity. This is a human rights crisis… The world needs a different kind of leadership, a different kind of politics as well as economics – something that works for all and not just for a favoured few”, said then Amnesty International (AI) Secretary General, Irene Khan in 2009. Two years ago, in a statement endorsed by hundreds of NGOs on the post-2015 Development Framework, Amnesty said that “[h]uman rights can only be realized within socio-economic and environmental boundaries if we also reduce inequalities of wealth, power and resources.” Calls for social justice or even egalitarianism seem to push human rights organizations beyond making a plea for the realization of economic and social rights (ESR). They face strategic decisions on whether and how to work on socio-economic inequalities and alleged related flaws in the prevailing economic order.
In our essay in the latest Changing Perspectives on Human Rights volume Can Human Rights Bring Social Justice? we discern four (overlapping) approaches human rights organisations might take to social justice.
Justice over rights
In this approach, human rights organisations might adopt social justice as part of their mission and develop a position on what this entails in terms of policies and campaigning. They would probably strive for a more ambitious, egalitarian agenda than merely realizing economic and social rights.
