Social and economic rights in the context of the economic crisis
Social and economic rights in the context of the economic crisis

Summary/Abstract: The topic of this paper is an older concern of mine as a Human Rights scholar: the influence of the economic situation of the individual upon his dignity, as well as the position of economic, social and cultural rights in the constitutional and international law contexts. In my paper, I will try to go beyond the classical theories on both human dignity (based on the idea of personal autonomy) and social rights (based on the division from civil and political rights, which put the former in a more unfavourable position, as “non‐justiciable rights”) and to affirm that today, in the context of a “neo‐liberal” understanding of the State’s intervention in the economic and social life, the human dignity is highly tributary to the economic welfare of the individual. From the practical point of view, the paper will focus on the constitutionalisation of human dignity, on one hand and of the social‐economic rights on the other hand, on the use of the human dignity concept by courts, in various contexts and also on the “conventionalization” of social and economic rights by the European Court of Human Rights, even though such rights are not guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. All these will be presented in the context of the recent economic and financial crisis and of the “austerity measures” taken to counterbalance it in many countries, with a particular emphasis on the situation in Romania and also having a comparative approach (Hungary, Greece etc.).

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