22.4 Social Welfare Rights
From Human Rights by LJM Cooray (1996)

These by their nature are not justiciable in the courts. Among topics which are placed in this category are alleged duties of the state: to secure full employment for all people of working age, to provide adequate standards of living and education to all citizens, to rapidly develop the country, to distribute the social product equitably, to eliminate economic and social privilege and disparity, to ensure social security and welfare, to develop the culture and languages of ethnic groups, to protect the environment, to safeguard the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the country and to promote international peace and co-operation.

The analysis above refers to three types of rights,

  1. the traditional rights primarily involving protection of individuals from government,
  2. ethnic and religious rights and
  3. social welfare rights.

It is important to distinguish between the different historical and conceptual bases of these three categories of rights which are loosely termed "human rights". Such differences between them are often blurred or ignored, with serious consequences for the operation of fundamental freedoms.

Since the second world war, there has been a great emphasis on human rights other than the classical civil liberties: on socio-economic rights, and on the rights of groups or classes or nations. The recognition that the promotion of socio-economic rights, as rights to benefit from the state, stand in great tension with civil liberties may be often deliberately obscured, but it is nevertheless widespread and it is, of course, a correct recognition. The traditional civil liberties, many have correctly recognised, require institutional settings, historical traditions, a sense of community. The socio-economic rights can, in principle, be granted by the state, even by a state which suppresses all non-state organisations and institutions. Very different kinds of societies may be involved. ...
The attempt to elevate human rights, in any particular formulation, uncritically, as urgent, unhistorical, abstract demands is not only based on intellectual error but is like most propaganda and moral indoctrination inherently unstable and unable to cope with genuine criticism. Human rights can only be understood, and therefore must be taught, in the concrete contexts in which they arise and have to be implemented. This is the social context of concrete history and real politics. There is also, in an important sense, a concrete human context. This is best portrayed by world literature, or at least by the great literature of the world, and not by shallow declarations and proclamations.( — E Kamenka What are Rights? paper presented at the Conference on "Teaching Human Rights", University of Sydney, November 1978, p 11).

The third category commonly included within the term "human rights", namely "socio-economic rights", raises basic questions regarding the meaning and operation of human rights. The recognition of this category as rights has created certain contradictions within the concept, leading to the weakening of civil liberties. The consequences of such recognition and the conflict that arises between civil liberties and socio-economic "rights" creates many problems. See LJM Cooray ed, Human Rights in Australia, Sydney (1985) Chapter 5. Such "rights" are not recognised as rights properly so called by those who believe in the primacy of civil liberties. There are human needs. Yet where a need exists, however compelling, a right cannot be said to automatically spring into existence.