Fundamental Social Rights

Abstract

This chapter provides an general overview of, and introduction to, the scholarship, debates and controversies on fundamental social rights. It sketches the origin of the concept of social rights, showing how the distinct formation of European Social State and Anglo-American Liberal models of rights discourse have shaped, and continue to have significance for, attitudes to the recognition and protection of social rights. This chapter also provides a snapshot of the ongoing controversies over the protection of social rights, drawing examples from a number of jurisdictions, to illustrate the various points of debate.

Keywords: fundamental social rights, socio-economic rights, justiciability, Social State, comparative law