The Nature of Welfare Rights
Izvleček
Europe is known for its adherence to the concept of welfare rights and social justice, which represents a major shift from the American perception of human rights. This adherence is reflected in the incorporation of welfare rights into a large number of nati-onal constitutions and regional instruments. Nevertheless, welfa-re rights still represent a controversial topic. The paper primarily deals with the theoretical foundations of these rights. Its purpose is to search for the sources of these rights, enlighten their legal na-ture and stress their special features. The first part of the paper is engaged with the issue of the status of these rights and what they provide to their holders. It attempts to define them and clarify the justification of their introduction into constitutional texts and re-gional conventions. The second part of the paper challenges the arguments against welfare rights. First, the superficial classificati-on and denotation of civil and political rights as negative and wel-fare rights as positive rights is discarded. Although the usefulness of the division into negative and positive rights is today questio-nable itself, the above identification should be deemed particular-ly controversial. The second issue relates to the possibility of their judicial enforcement. If that is possible, despite their vagueness, is there, a difference between the justiciability of welfare and civil and political rights?
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Bandes, S., “The Negative Constitution: A Critique”, Michigan Law Review, vol. 88, 1990, pp. 2271-
2347.
Barić, S., “Normativna djelatnost kao izazov ostvarenju socijalnih prava” in N. Bodiroga Vukobrat and
S. Barić (eds.), Socijalna prava kao temeljna ljudska prava, Zagreb, 2010, pp. 30-55.
Currie, D. P., “Positive and Negative Constitutional Rights”, University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 53,
1986, pp. 864-890.
Eddy, K., “Welfare Rights and Conflicts of Rights”, Res Publica, vol. 12, 2006, pp. 337-356.
Fabre, C., Social Rights under the Constitution – Government and the Decent Life, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2000.
Feinberg, J., Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy, Princeton, N.J.,
Princeton University Press, 1980.
Forbath, W. E., “Constitutional Welfare Rights: A History, Critique and Reconstruction”, Fordham Law
Review, vol. 69, no. 5, 2001, pp. 822-1891.
Kavanagh, A., “Social Rights under the Constitution – Government and the Decent Life by Cecile
Fabre (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000) Book Review” Journal of Law and Society, vol. 29,
no. 2, 2002, pp. 355-358.
Liu, G., “Rethinking Constitutional Welfare Rights”, Stanford Law Review, vol. 61, 2008, pp. 203-269.
Kumm, M., “Constitutional Rights as Principles: On the Structure and Domain of Constitutional Justice”,
I. CON, vol. 2, no. 3, 2004, pp. 574-596.
Michelman, F. L., “The Supreme Court, 1969 Term. Foreword: On Protecting the Poor Through the
Fourteenth Amendment”, Harvard Law Review, vol. 83, 1969, p. 7-59.
Michelman, F. L., “In Pursuit of Constitutional Welfare Rights: One View of Rawls’s Theory of Justice”,
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 121, 1972-1973, pp. 121-1019.
Michelman, F. L., “The Constitution, Social Rights, and Liberal Political Justification”, Oxford University
Press and New York University School of Law, I. CON, 2003, vol. 1, no. 1, 2003, pp. 13-34.
MacNaughton, J., “Positive Rights in Constitutional Law: No Need to Graft, Best Not to Prune”, U. Pa.
J. Const. L., vol. 3, 2014, p. 750.
Omejec, J., President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, World Conference on
Constitutional Justice, Cape Town, 23–24 January 2009, Theme: “Influential Constitutional Justice:
its Influence on Society and on Developing a Global Human Rights Jurisprudence”,
http://www.venice.coe.int/WCC J/Papers/CRO_Omejec_E.pdf, (accessed August 2015).
O’Neil, O., “The Dark Side of Human Rights”, International Affairs, vol. 81, no. 2, 2005, pp. 427–439.
Palmer, E., “Protecting Socio-economic Rights through the European Convention on Human Rights:
Trends and Developments in the European Court of Human Rights”, Erasmus Law Review, vol. 2,
no. 4, 2009, pp. 397-425, SSRN http://ssrn.com/abstract=1542674, (accessed1 August 2015).
Pascal, E., “Welfare Rights in State Constitutions”, Rutgers Law Journal, vol. 39, 2007-2008, pp. 863-
901.
Raes, K., “The Philosophical Basis of Social, Economic and Cultural Rights’, in
P. Van der Auweraert, T. De Pelsmaeker, J. Sarkin and J. Vande Lanotte, (eds.), Social, Economic and
Cultural Rights: An Appraisal of Current European and International Developments, Antwerpen-
Apeldoorn, Maklu, 2002, pp. 43–57.
Rivers, J., “A Theory of Constitutional Rights and the British Constitution”, in Alexy, R., A Theory
of Constitutional Rights (Introduction and Translation Julian Rivers), Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2004, pp. xvii-li.
Rodin, S., “Ustavni sud definira socijalnu državu”, Revija za socijalnu politiku, vol. 5, no. 2-3, 1998,
pp. 111-118.
Sadurski, W., “Postcommunist Charters of Rights in Europe and the U.S. Bill Of Rights”, vol. 65, no. 2,
2002, Law and Contemporary Problems, pp. 223-250.
Sadurski, W., Rights Before Courts. A Study of Constitutional Courts in Postcommunist States of Central
and Eastern Europe, Second Edition, Springer, 2014
Sadurski, W., Constitutional Courts in the Process of Articulating Constitutional Rights in the Post-
Communist States of Central and Eastern Europe Part I: Social and Economic Rights, European
University Institute, Florence Department of Law. EUI Working Paper Law no. 2002/14.BADIA
FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI),
http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/192/law0214.pdf;jsessionid=71A4340EE110407FAA3492
7F1D14B52F?sequence=1, (accessed 1 August 2015).
Sadurski, W., Constitutional Socio-Economic Rights: Lessons from Central Europe, The Foundation for
Law, Justice and Society, 2009.
Schwartz, H., “In Defence of Aiming High”, East European Constitutional Law Review, vol. 1, fall
1992, pp. 25-28.
Schwartz, H., “The Wisdom and Enforceability of Welfare Rights as Constitutional Rights”, Human
Rights Brief, vol. 8, no. 2, 2001, pp. 1-2.
Smith, T., “On Deriving Rights to Goods from Rights to Freedom”, Law and Philosophy, vol. 11, 1992,
pp. 217-234.
Sunstein, C., “Against Positive Rights”, East European Constitutional Review, vol. 2, winter 1993, pp.
35-38.
Sunstein, C., “Why Does the American Constitution Lack Social and Economic Guarantees?”, (January
2003), U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper, No. 36, http://ssrn.com/abstract=375622 or http://
dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.375622, (accessed1 August 2015).
Šarčević, E. (ed.), Izabrane odluke njemačkog Saveznog ustavnog suda, Fondacija Konrad Adenauer,
2009.
Šarin, D., “Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske kao institucionalni zaštitnik ljudskih prava i temeljnih
sloboda”, Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta u Splitu, vol. 52, no. 3, 2015, pp 755-784.
Tucak, I. and Blagojević, A., “Welfare Rights in the Croatian Constitution” in M. Vinković (ed.), New
Developments in EU Labour, Equality and Human Rights Law, Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer
University of Osijek, forthcoming.
Tushnet, M., “State Action, Social Welfare Rights, and the Judicial Role: Some Comparative Observations”,
Chicago Journal of International Law, vol. 3, 2002, pp. 435-453.
Tushnet, M., “Social Welfare Rights and the Forms of Judicial Review”, Texas Law Review, vol. 82,
2003-2004, pp. 1895-1919.
Vande Lanotte, J. and De Pelsmaeker, T., “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Belgian Constitution”
P. Van der Auweraert, T. De Pelsmaeker, J. Sarkin and J. Vande Lanotte, (eds.), Social, Economic
and Cultural Rights: An Appraisal of Current European and International Developments,
Antwerpen-Apeldoorn, Maklu, 2002, pp. 263-286.
Waldron, J., Law and Disagreement, Oxford [etc.], Oxford University Press, 2004.
Wellman, C., An Approach to Rights, Studies in the Philosophy of Law and Morals, Dordrecht, Boston,
London, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.
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