Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights

A.	Judging by what I’ve derived from our lectures, long before human rights were written down in international documents and national constitutions, people revealed their commitment to principles of propriety, justice, and caring through cultural practices and oral traditions. Basic rights and responsibilities, such as the right to food and the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” revolved around family, tribe, religion, class, community, or state.
B.	As a matter of fact, the earliest attempts of literate societies to write about rights and responsibilities date back more than 4,000 years to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi. This Code, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the Analects of Confucius, the Koran, and the Hindu Vedas are five of the oldest written sources which address questions of people’s duties, rights, and responsibilities.
A.	Definitely, today, the promotion of human rights is guided by what is referred to as the International Bill of Rights. It includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and two treaties – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
B.	A list of human rights concerns, specified in Articles 16 and 22-29 of the UDHR, impressed me greatly. They refer to: marriage and family;work and leisure (free choice of employment, just conditions of work, equal pay for equal work, just remuneration, freedom to form and join trade unions, and rest); a standard of living adequate for food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and social services; education (free and compulsory elementary education, equal access based on merit, parental choice, and full development of the human personality); protection of one’s own literary, scientific, and artistic productions and many more.
A.	That’s right. The United States has long attended to some of these economic, social, and cultural rights. For example, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) sought to save the US struggling economic system and implement his vision of economic and social justice. In a 1937 speech in Chicago, FDR declared, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished … The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Four years later, in his State of the Union Address, FDR spoke inspiringly of a world with four major freedoms – freedom of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear.
B.	What is more, during Roosevelt’s presidency band in the years since, the United States has sought to respond to these economic and social needs with new policies. These have included health insurance programs, social security insurance, unemployment insurance, public works projects, farm supports, expanded educational opportunities, and laws supporting worker rights to organize and strike. However, US government leaders have never presented these to American people as human rights to which everyone is entitled.
A.	I’m clear now. I suppose we are overwhelmed. We have got a real recital of facts and surmise.
B.	Let’s call it a day.

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Task 1. Report the dialogue. Use the following reporting verbs:

to acknowledge that	to explain that
to surmise that	to mention
to confirm	to make it clear
to explain	to finalize the matter

Task 2. Imitate the dialogue as if A speaks English and B speaks Russian through the interpreter.

Task 3. Do it in English:

A.

• свободный выбор работы

• полное развитие человеческой личности

• справедливое вознаграждение

• относиться, быть датированным

• защита своих собственных литературных, научных и художественных 6 произведений

• заявлять

• подробное изложение фактов и предложений

• страхование на случай безработицы

• основные права и обязанности

• социальное страхование

• Ветхий и Новый Завет Библии

• Я потрясен.

• справедливые условия труда

• Давайте заканчивать.

• свобода сформировать или присоединиться к профсоюзам

• программа медицинского страхования

• равная оплата за равный труд

• во время президентского правления Рузвельта

• бесплатное и обязательное начальное образование

• жить в плохих условиях, быть плохо одетым и плохо питаться

B.

Что это значит — права человека?

Права человека — это права, необходимые нам для полноценной жизни. Без прав человека мы не можем в полной мере развить и реализовать свои человеческие качества, интеллект и способности и удовлетворить духовные потребности.

Приняв в 1948 году  Всеобщую декларацию прав человека, Организация Объединенных Наций установила единый стандарт в области прав человека для всех стран. В этой декларации правительства обязались добиваться, чтобы все люди — богатые и бедные, сильные и слабые, мужчины и женщины, независимо от расы и вероисповедания, были равны. Эта декларация относится к числу имеющих обязательную силу международно-правовых актов, однако благодаря ее широкому признанию странами мира она приобрела большое моральное значение.

Кроме того, ООН приняла много международных договоров в области прав человека, которые юридически обязывают страны гарантировать своим гражданам социальные, экономические и политические права. Важнейшими из этих договоров являются два международных пакта — по экономическим, социальным и культурным правам и по гражданским и политическим правам. Эти договоры вместе с Факультативными протоколами образуют Междуна-родный билль о правах человека.

Task 4. Look back at Dialogue 3.6. Produce your own dialogue about the significance of the human rights issue using Supporting materials. Make a full use of the underlined helpful phrases from Dialogue 3.6.

Supporting Materials

During the years after World War II, the Cold War polarized capitalist and communist countries into East and West, with each emphasizing different types of rights. The United States, proud of its achievements in the areas of civil and political rights, criticized its communist rivals, particularly the Soviet Union, for denying these to their citizens. On its part, the USSR asserted the importance of government in ensuring that all citizens have adequate food, health care, employment, social insurance, and education. Members of the Soviet Union accused the USA of refusing to guarantee these economic and social rights to its citizens. These political stances, however, did not adequately capture the reality that both sides of the East-West conflict were struggling with issues related to the full range of rights.

Other nations, such as Sweden and Denmark, sought to promote both clusters of rights through the establishment of social welfare states. And many of the new nations in Africa and Asia, created since the end of World War II, such as Egypt, the Philippines, South Africa, and Tanzania, wrote constitutions embodying the wide range of principles found in the UDHR. They have sought to establish development strategies reflecting a commitment to these rights.

However, if we look across the globe, it is evident that we are far from achieving the goals of justice and human dignity for all. Yes, there have been popular movements towards democratization in many parts of the world, with elected leaders replacing dictators. Yes, there have been advances in education, health care, and sanitation. Nevertheless, among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths still have no access to basic sanitation, almost one-third are without safe drinking water, one-quarter lack adequate housing, one-fifth live beyond reach of modern health services, one-fifth of the children do not reach grade five in school, and one –fifth are undernourished.

Almost all of the world’s nations have indicated a commitment to achieving full economic, social, and cultural rights by agreeing to the United Nations’ international covenant on these rights. The United States has not; it appears unwilling to conduct the self-scrutiny that would be required.

The results of this lack of commitment leave the United States with much to do. One US child in five lives in official poverty, between 1.2 and 2 million people are homeless during any year, 40 million are without health insurance, and the number of people turning to emergency food shelves and soup kitchens for their meals is rapidly growing.

Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and inalienable. Therefore, the enhancement of all rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural – must be our goal.