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The World Turned Upside Down? Neo-Liberalism, Socioeconomic Rights, and Hegemony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2014

JOE WILLS
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Abstract

This article draws upon a neo-Gramscian analysis of world order to critically assess the relationship between neo-liberal globalization and socioeconomic rights. It argues that, notwithstanding the well-documented discursive tensions that appear to exist between neo-liberalism and socioeconomic rights, the latter have been reconceptualized in a manner that is congruent with the hegemonic framework of the former in a number of international institutional settings. This has been achieved in part through three discursive framing devices which will be termed ‘socioeconomic rights as aspirations’, ‘socioeconomic rights as compensation’, and ‘socioeconomic rights as market outcomes’. The article will conclude by arguing that, despite such appropriation, there are still fruitful possibilities for counterhegemonic articulations of socioeconomic rights to contest neo-liberal globalization.

Keywords

socioeconomic rightsneo-liberalismhegemonyglobalizationGramsci
Type
INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 11 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2014 

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References

1 Proponents of this thesis include both advocates of socioeconomic rights who are critical of neo-liberalism and vice versa. See, for example, Pieterse, M., ‘Beyond the Welfare State: Globalisation of Neo-Liberal Culture and the Constitutional Protection of Social and Economic Rights in South Africa’, (2003) 14 Stellenbosch Law Review 3, at 12Google Scholar; Kirkup, A and Evans, T., ‘The Myth of Western Opposition to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights? A Reply to Whelan and Donnelly’, (2009) 31 Human Rights Quarterly 221, at 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Plant, The Neo-Liberal State (2010), 116; F. A. Hayek, probably the most influential theorist associated with neo-liberalism, expressly rejected socioeconomic rights as being incompatible with a free society. See Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice (1976), 101–6Google Scholar. See also R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), 238. Nozick is usually classified as a libertarian rather than a neo-liberal. Nevertheless, as Raymond Plant notes, Nozick's theories have been influential in the development of neo-liberalism. See Plant, supra, at 96.

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44 See Ruckert, ‘Producing Neoliberal Hegemony?’, supra note 41, at 110.

45 Harvey, P., ‘Aspirational Law’, (2004) 52 Buffalo Law Review 701Google Scholar, at 703–9 (arguing that socioeconomic rights constitute a counterweight to the utilitarian wealth maximization logic of neoclassical economics).

46 See for example Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) General Comment No. 15: The Right to Water, UN Doc. E/C.12/2002/11, at para. 11 (‘water should be treated as a social and cultural good and not primarily an economic good’) and para. 12(c)(ii) (‘water … must be affordable for all’).

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49 See e.g. Horwitz, M., ‘Rights’, (1988) 23 Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 393Google Scholar, at 406; C. Douzinas, The End of Human Rights (2000), 1; U. Baxi, The Future of Human Rights (2002), 40–41; de Sousa Santos, supra note 48, 257–80; Rajagopal, B., ‘Counter-hegemonic International Law: Rethinking Human Rights and Development as a ThirdWorld Strategy’, (2006) 27 (5)Third World Quarterly 767, at 768CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stammers, supra note 11, at 3.

50 Stammers, supra note 11.

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55 H. Steiner, P. Alston, and R. Goodman, International Human Rights Law in Context: Law, Politics, Morals (2007), at 280–2.

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57 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 999 UNTS 171, entered into force 23 March 1976.

58 ICCPR, Art. 2(1).

59 Craven, M., ‘The Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, in Burchill, R., Harris, D., and Owers, A. (eds.), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Their Implementation in United Kingdom Law (1999), 1Google Scholar at 5.

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63 Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR), UN Doc A/63/435.

64 OP-ISCER, Arts. 2, 8, 9, and 10.

65 The OP-ICESCR was adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 2008, but did not receive its tenth ratification (from Uruguay) until 5 February 2013, which ratification was required for its entry into force. It entered into force on 5 May 2013. Whereas the OP-ICESCR only has ten parties, the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR has 114. The United States and the United Kingdom, both key players in the context of neo-liberal globalization, have not signed the OP-ICESCR.

66 See, e.g., Baker, G., ‘Problems in the Theorisation of Global Civil Society’, (2002) 50 Political Studies 928, at 943CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans, T. and Ayers, A. J., ‘In the Service of Power: The Global Political Economy of Citizenship and Human Rights’, (2006) 10 (3)Citizenship Studies 289, at 295–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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68 T. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (2002), 15–20; R. Faini and E. Grill, ‘Who Runs the IFIs?’, (2004) Centre for Economic and Policy Research, Discussion Paper No. 4666, at 21; Adouharb and Cingranelli, supra note 8, at 135–49.

69 See, e.g., Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 56th Meeting, 22 April 2003, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2003/SR.56, at para. 49; Commission on Human Rights, Summary Record of the 51st Meeting, 16 April 2004, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2004/SR.51, at para. 84; Commission on Human Rights, 61st Session, 10 February 2005, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2005/52, at para. 76. For a critical analysis see Craven, M., ‘The Violence of Dispossession: Extra-Territoriality and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, in Baderin, M. and McCorquodale, R. (eds.), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Action (2007), 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 88.

70 See, e.g., CESCR, General Comment No. 2, UN Doc. E/C.12/1990 para. 9; CESCR, General Comment No. 12, UN Doc. E/C.12/1999/5, para. 36; CESCR, General Comment No. 13, UN Doc. E/C.12/1999/5, para. 56; CESCR, General Comment No. 15, supra note 46, at paras. 33–36; CESCR, General Comment No. 18 (2005), UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/18, para. 30. There are a few exceptions to this general pattern. In its General Comment on the ‘relationship between economic sanctions and respect for economic, social and cultural rights’ the CESCR asserts that the state and the international community ‘must … do everything possible to protect at least the core content of the economic, social and cultural rights of the affected peoples’ of the country under sanction (emphasis added). General Comment No. 8, UN Doc. E/C.12/1997/8, para. 7. General Comment No. 15 and General Comments No. 14 and 18 (in relation to the rights to water, health, and work, respectively) all assert that states ‘have to respect the enjoyment’ of the relevant rights of peoples in other countries. However, as members of international financial institutions – such as the IMF and World Bank – it is only asserted that they ‘should pay greater attention’ to the protection of the relevant rights in their influencing of lending policies, credit agreements, and international measures. CESCR, General Comment No. 15, supra note 41, paras. 31 and 36; CESCR, General Comment No. 14, UN Doc. E/C.12/2000/4, para. 39; CESCR, General Comment No. 19, UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/18 paras. 53 and 58.

71 See, e.g., CESCR, General Comment No. 12, supra note 70 at para. 20.

72 See, e.g., General Comment No. 11, supra note 62, at para. 41; General Comment No. 13, supra note 62, at para. 60; General Comment No. 14, supra note 62, at para. 39; General Comment No. 15, supra note 62, at para. 60; General Comment No. 18, supra note 62, at para. 53.

73 See Concluding Observations of the CESCR: Morocco (2000) E/C.12/1/Add.55 at para. 38; Egypt (2000) E/C.12/1/Add.44 at paras. 10 and 28; Algeria (2001) E/C.12/1/Add.71 at para. 43; Venezuela (2001) E/C.12/1/Add.56 at para. 8.

74 For a much more radical interpretation of extraterritorial obligations with regard to socioeconomic rights, see Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2011), available at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/humanRights/articlesAndTranscripts/2011/MaastrichtEcoSoc.pdf.

75 Quoted in I. Bantekas and L. Oette, International Human Rights Law and Practice (2013), 217.

76 M. Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (2005), at 69

77 Cutler, A. C., ‘Gramsci, Law and the Culture of Global Capitalism’, (2005) 8 (4)Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 527CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 537.

78 Evans and Ayers, supra note 66, at 293.

79 Cutler, supra note 77, at 539.

80 CECR, Report on the Tenth and Eleventh Sessions (2–20 May 1994, 21 November–9 December 1994), UN Doc. E/C 12/1994/20, at paras. 363–390.

81 Ibid., at para. 390.

82 Ibid., at para. 373.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid., at para. 373.

85 Ibid., at para. 384.

86 Ibid., at paras. 378–386.

87 Ibid., at paras. 365–367.

88 See e.g., Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Human Rights and Trade, 5th WTO Ministerial Conference, Cancun, Mexico, 10–14 September 2003’, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/globalization/trade/docs/5WTOMinisterialCancun.pdf, at 4.

89 CESCR, General Comment No. 3, UN Doc. E/1999/22, at para. 8.

90 See, e.g., Buckel and Fischer-Lescano, supra note 10, at 445–50; Cutler, supra note 10, at 218; Gramsci, supra note 21, at 195–6, 246–7, 258, and 260.

91 See previous section.

92 CESCR, General Comment No. 2, supra note 70, at para. 9.

93 CESCR, ‘Globalization and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, UN Doc. E/1999/22-E/C, at paras. 2 and 3.

94 Ibid., at para. 4.

95 CESCR, General Comment No. 2, supra note 70, at para. 9.

96 CESCR, ‘An Open Letter’ (16 May 2012), CESCR/48th/SP/MAB/SW (hereafter ‘Open Letter’), available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/LetterCESCRtoSP16.05.12.pdf.

97 Ibid., at 1.

98 Ibid., at 2. See also Concluding Observations of the CESCR, Spain E/C.12/ESP/CO/5, para. 8.

99 ‘Open Letter’, supra note 96, at 2.

100 See for example, CESCR, General Comment No. 13, supra note 70, at para. 45; General Comment No. 14, supra note 70, at para. 32; General Comment No. 15, supra note 46, at para. 19. See also ICESCR, supra note 53, at Art. 4 (‘the State may subject [ICESCR] rights only to such limitations as are determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society’).

101 S. Fredman, Human Rights Transformed: Positive Rights and Positive Duties (2008), 93–8.

102 See discussion of Hurley and Moore, infra this section.

103 Open Letter, supra note 96, at 2.

104 See, e.g., CESCR, General Comment No. 14, supra note 70, at para. 12(b)(iii); CESCR, General Comment No. 15, supra note 46, at para. 27.

105 The joint International Monetary Fund, World Bank Global Monitoring 2010 report estimated that by 2010 an additional 64 million people fell into extreme poverty as a result of the economic crisis alone. See World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Global Monitoring Report 2010: The MDGs after the Crisis (2010), at viii.

106 See supra, section 2.2.

107 R (Hurley and Moore) v. Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2012] EWHC 201 (Admin)

108 Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Art. 2, adopted 20 March 1952, entered into force 18 May 1954, 213 UNTS, ETS 9.

109 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Art. 14, signed 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953, 213 UNTS 221.

110 ICESCR, supra note 53, Art. 13(2)(c).

111 Hurley and Moore, supra note 107, at 36–8.

112 Ibid., at 43 and 32. Such statements reinforce the socioeconomic-rights-as-aspirations frame discussed in the previous section.

113 Ibid., at 23.

114 Ibid., at 44.

115 Ibid., at 51 and 52.

116 U. Baxi, The Future of Human Rights (2008), 234.

117 Ibid., at 257.

118 Ibid.

119 Souza, R. De, ‘Liberal Theory, Human Rights and Water-Justice: Back to Square One?’, (2008) 1 Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal 1, at 5Google Scholar.

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123 F. Gianviti, ‘Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Monetary Fund’, (2002) available at http://www.imf.org/external/np/leg/sem/2002/cdmfl/eng/gianv3.pdf, at para. 57.

124 P. Lamy, ‘Towards Shared Responsibility and Greater Coherence: Human Rights, Trade and Macroeconomic Policy’ (2010), available at http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sIl146_e.htm.

125 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realisation of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/009/y9825e/y9825e00.htm, accessed November 1 2012.

126 Ibid., at Part 2, Guideline 4.2.

127 Ibid.

128 Ibid., at Part 2, Guideline 4.4.

129 Ibid., at Part 2, Guideline 4.6.

130 Ibid., at Part 2, Guideline 4.7.

131 Ibid., at Part 2, Guideline 8.4.

132 Vidar, cited in Germann, J., ‘The Human Right to Food: “Voluntary Guidelines” Negotiations’, in Atasoy, Y. (ed.), Hegemonic Transitions, the State and Crisis in Neoliberal Capitalism (2009), at 138Google Scholar.

133 The Ministerial Declaration of the 6th World Water Forum, 13 March 2012, para. 3, available at http://www.worldwaterforum6.org/en/news/single/article/the-ministerial-declaration-of-the-6th-world-water-forum.

134 Ibid., at para. 29.

135 Felipe Quispe Quenta, Bolivia's minister for water and the environment, denounced the declaration for failing to address the ‘social dimensions’ of water policies and stated’ It is certainly important to strengthen and support local actions to protect and preserve water for the benefit of all those who will enjoy it in different uses, but a payment is not the way to do it … water cannot be turned into a business.’ Quoted in C. Provost, ‘World Water Forum Falls Short on Human Rights, Claim Experts’, Guardian, 14 March 2013.

136 E.g., the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, supra note 125. In addition to articulating neo-liberal policy the Guidelines also stress that ‘states will take into account that markets do not automatically result in everybody achieving sufficient income at all times to meet basic needs’ (Part 2, Guideline 4.9) and that ‘State parties should, to the extent that resources permit, establish and maintain safety nets to protect those who are unable to provide for themselves’ (Part 1, Guideline 17).

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139 Gramsci, supra note 21, at 330–1.

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144 See for example W. D. Schanbacher, The Politics of Food: The Global Conflict between Food Security and Food Sovereignty (2010).

145 For a selection of documents prepared by the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty see http://www.foodsovereignty.org/Resources/Archive/Forum.aspx.

146 Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni 2007, available at http://www.nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290.

147 W. Bello, The Food Wars (2009), at 125–49

148 D. Matthews, Intellectual Property, Human Rights and Development (2011).

149 See, e.g., Letter to Ask World Health Organization to Evaluate New Treaty Framework for Medical Research and Development, available at http://www.cptech.org/workingdrafts/rndsignonletter.html; Pogge, T., ‘Human Rights and Global Health: A Research Program’, (2005) 36 Metaphilosophy, 182CrossRefGoogle Scholar

150 Castro, J. E., ‘Neoliberal Water and Sanitation Policies as a Failed Development Strategy: Lessons from Developing Countries’, (2008) 8 Progress in Development Studies 63, at 68, 73, and 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

151 M. A. Manahan, G. Zanzanaini, and C. Campero, ‘Future of Water Movement Session: A Summary (2012), available at http://www.fame2012.org/en/2012/04/10/future-of-water-movement.

152 Mirosa and Harris, supra note 142, at 942–4.

153 Ibid.

154 For a collection of international declarations declaring that water is a fundamental human right and common good that cannot be commodified see http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/human_right.

155 For a detailed analysis of the relationship between food sovereignty and the right to food see M. Windfuhr and J. Jonsen, Food Sovereignty: Towards Democracy in Localized Food Systems (2005). For the role the right to health has played in contesting international intellectual property norms see Matthews, supra note 148, at 210–18. For an analysis of the relationship between the right to water and other water justice discourses see Mirosa and Harris, supra note 142.

156 Stammers, supra note 11, at 33–9.

157 Fraser, N., ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, in Baker (ed.), Post Modernism and the Re-Reading of Modernity (1992), 84Google Scholar.

158 Ibid.

159 In relation to the UN, Baxi notes a tendency in which ‘human rights standards and norms, which are products of diplomatic and international civil service desire within the ever-expanding United Nations system, lend themselves to a whole variety of foreign power and global corporate uses and abuses under the cover of “international consensus”. Baxi, supra note 49, at 9. Ran Hirschl suggests a tendency for courts to play a role in advancing ‘a predominantly neo-liberal conception of rights that reflects and promotes the ideological premises of the “new global economic order” – social atomism, anti-unionism, formal equality, and “minimal state” policies’. R. Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalization (2000), at 163. See also O’Connell, P., ‘The Death of Socioeconomic Rights’, (2011) 74 (4)Modern Law Review 532, at 532Google Scholar (arguing that the socioeconomic rights jurisprudence of apex courts in Canada, India, and South Africa points towards an underlying trend of an ‘atomistic, “market friendly”’ reading of human rights).

160 Gramsci, supra note 21, at 238–9.

161 Cox, supra note 34, at 53

162 See B. De Sousa Santos, ‘Beyond Neoliberal Governance: The World Social Forum as Subaltern Cosmopolitan Politics and Legality’, in De Sousa Santos, B. and Rodriguez-Garavito, C. A. (eds.), Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality (2005), 29 at 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for an account of the Permanent People's Tribunal see http://www.internazionaleleliobasso.it/?page_id=207%lang=en; Al Attar, M. and Miller, R., ‘Towards an Emancipatory International Law: The Bolivian Reconstruction’, (2010) 31 (3)Third World Quarterly 347, at 363Google Scholar.

163 For critical accounts of the role that rights and international law play in universalization strategies see Hunt, supra note 140, at 321; Kennedy, D., ‘The Critique of Rights in Critical Legal Studies’, in Brown, W. and Halley, J. (eds.), Left Legalism/Left Critique (2002), at 188Google Scholar; Koskenniemi, M., ‘International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration’, (2004) 17 (2)Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

164 Gramsci, supra note 21, at 181–2.

165 See, e.g., V. Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital (2013), 202–6.

166 Carroll, W. K., ‘Hegemony, Counter-Hegemony, Anti-Hegemony’, (2006) 2 (2)Socialist Studies 9, at 21Google Scholar.