GOVERNMENT OBLIGATIONS UNDER HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS

Respect
Governments must respect human rights, which means that a government cannot interfere with a person exercising their human rights. For example, a government violates the obligation to respect human rights when school officials expel a student from a public school on arbitrary grounds, such as pregnancy or homelessness, or when a government policy prohibits access to needed medical services or drugs, such as birth control, or when a government engages in mass evictions of public housing residents in the interests of “development” without securing adequate alternative housing for those residents. In all these instances, government actions prevented individuals from exercising human rights (education, health, housing).

Protect
Governments must protect human rights. When private actors (that is, a person or business or institution that is not part of the government) impair the exercise of human rights, the government must step in to protect those rights. For example, if factories are imposing sweatshop conditions on employees that violate the right to work for adequate pay and under reasonable conditions, the government is obligated to step in and protect the right to work.

Fulfill
Governments must fulfill human rights. What this means is that the government must create the conditions that allow all people to exercise their human rights. For example, everyone has the right to receive medical care. Yet, many people in this country cannot afford health insurance (and do not qualify for Medicaid). Almost 44 million people are in this situation. The government is obligated to create conditions that make private insurance affordable, or provide an alternative – like an affordable public insurance scheme that guarantees universal quality care. By taking no action, the US government has failed to meet its obligation to fulfill the right to receive health care.

PRINCIPALS THAT APPLY TO GOVERNMENT OBLIGATIONS

Progressive Implementation (non-retrogression)
Under International law, governments must “progressively implement” economic and social rights. What does this mean? It means that the government is not expected to fulfill (see government obligations) all these rights immediately and at the same time. But it must make progress in fulfilling these rights until they are completely guaranteed. So if the government takes no action to ensure economic and social rights, then it has not met its obligation. For example, if public schools in poor neighborhoods are not providing children with an adequate education and the government does not continuously take steps to improve those schools, the government is failing to meet its obligation. At the same time, if the government actually weakens protections for economic and social rights – for instance dismantling entitlements or tearing down public housing without providing equivalent or improved alternatives – it is a regression and a clear violation.

Minimum Core Content
Under international law, there is a minimum that the government must meet for each economic and social right. So even if the government is not obligated to fulfill all these rights completely and immediately, it cannot allow conditions to fall below a certain level of protection for these human rights. Hunger and absolute homelessness violate this minimum. So while the government is afforded some time to ensure adequate housing for all, it must immediately address extreme situations such as lack of any shelter.

Monitoring
The government is required to monitor whether economic human rights are protected. For example, when the government was monitoring how many people were leaving the welfare rolls, but not monitoring the impact of welfare reform on the economic security and well-being of those families, it failed to meet its obligation to monitor the right to social security (the right to social security includes resources to maintain an adequate standard of living in the case of extended unemployment).

Discrimination
No matter what level of protection a government is giving human rights, it must do so without any discrimination. Discrimination includes both purposeful acts that are discriminatory, and situations where particular groups are especially and disproportionately affected. Where discrimination exists, the government must redress it immediately.

Obligations of Conduct and Result
Finally, the government is both responsible for its conduct (i.e. what it does) and any results from government action or inaction. For example, if educational policies are put in place to improve education, but actually result in poorer educational outcomes for poor children, the government is held accountable under human rights standards for that result.