Viewed in historical perspective, the recent rise of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in comparative legal jurisprudence and litigation strategy is remarkable. From a small number of jurisdictions to countries in all regions and legal systems of the world, there has been both a broadening and deepening of domestic judicial enforcement of these rights. While this enterprise casts some doubt on traditional presumptions concerning the non-justiciability of ESC, there remain a number of conceptual, instrumental and empirical questions. This paper seeks to provide an overview of the underlying causes of this socio-legal development, the nature and content of the emerging jurisprudence, the empirical evidence and debates around impact, lessons learned in effective litigation strategy and concludes with some thoughts on how the field could be developed.
Social rights; Justiciability; Impact; Litigation strategy
