Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision

Description

There is a clear overlap between securing socio-economic human rights for all persons and arranging adequate access to essential public services across society. Both are necessary to realise thriving, inclusive societies, with adequate living standards for all, based on human dignity. This edited volume brings together the two topics for the first time. In particular, it identifies the common challenges for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights realisation, and it explores how socio-economic rights law can be harnessed to reinforce better access to services. An important aim of this book is to understand how international socio-economic human rights law and guideposts can be used and strengthened to improve access to services, and assess socio-economic legal and policy decisions. The volume includes contributions from different continents, on a range of different services, and engages with the realities of different regulatory settings. After an introduction that sets out the most important challenges for universal access to services – including sufficient resources mobilisation, private actor involvement and regulation, or the need for improved checks and balances – the book goes on to discuss current issues in services provision and socio-economic rights, as well as explores the place and role of private business actors in the provision of services. In particular, it assesses how the responsibility and accountability of such actors for human rights can be improved . The final part of the book narrows in on the under-explored human rights concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’, as essential prerequisites for better ‘checks and balances’. Overall, this volume presents a unique and powerful illustration of how socio-economic human rights law supports improved access to essential public services for all. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Notes on contributors Foreword 1 Common challenges for socio-economic human rights and essential public services provision Part I Socio-economic human rights for essential public services provision: trends and issues 2 Reconciling international obligations and local realities: provision of pain control medication in resource-constrained countries – experiences from Uganda 3 The right to health and TRIPS: access to essential medicines and patenting in India 4 Access to water services: the World Bank and water rights 5 Is cutting people’s electricity off ‘cut off’ from the ratione materiae jurisdiction of the CJEU and the ECtHR? 6 Disaster management in EU law: solidarity among individuals and among States Part II The role of private actors in essential public services provision 7 EU public service obligations and their potential for human rights protection 8 Private providers of essential public services and de jure responsibility for human rights 9 Pharmaceutical companies and intellectual property protection: human rights actors or recipients? 10 The responsibility of business enterprises to restore access to essential public services at resettlement sites Part III Participation and accountability for essential public services provision 11 ‘Participation’ for all? Challenges and tools to realise participation for vulnerable persons with a focus on health services 12 Mobilising public participation as a requirement of the right to health in the context of China’s air pollution 13 Individual inputs and collective outputs: understanding the structural benefits of individual litigation on healthcare in Brazil 14 Access to effective remedies for the protection of human rights in essential public services provision in Colombia 15 The media’s role in ensuring social accountability for the right to health in China Part IV Conclusion 16 International guideposts for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights Index