Can Ratification of the ICESCR Reduce Income Inequality? Yes!

Two recent publications address the domestic impact of human rights law, both focus on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) — a treaty that the U.S. has signed but not ratified.  While economic and social rights are often characterized as aspirational in the U.S. domestic context, these authors find that the ICESCR has practical impacts in those countries that ratify it.

First, based on a study of more than one hundred countries over a 25 year period, Professor Ward Cole of the University of Utah concludes membership in the ICESCR is an effective approach to reducing domestic income inequality   His article, International Human Rights and Domestic Income Inequality: A Difficult Case of Compliance in World Society, appears at pp. 359-90 of the April 2015 issue of the  American Sociological Review. 

Here is the article abstract:

Much research finds that human rights treaties fail to improve domestic practices unless governments are held accountable in some fashion. The implication is that noncompliance can be attributed to insincere commitments and willful disobedience. I challenge this claim for a core but overlooked treaty: the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Few analysts have studied the ICESCR because its terms are difficult to implement and suitable measures for judging compliance are hard to find. I analyze its association with income inequality, using data for more than 100 countries (1981 to 2005) and methods that account for the possibility of reverse causality. ICESCR membership reduces inequality in both developed and developing countries, although the relationship is stronger for developed countries—precisely those with the greatest capacity to implement their obligations. Other key determinants of income inequality and treaty compliance—left partisanship, union density, workers’ rights, and democracy—do not systematically condition the effects of ICESCR membership. The ICESCR is therefore quite effective in reducing inequality, an outcome likely explained by renewed global attention to socioeconomic rights during the neoliberal era. 

 More information on the article is available here.

Second, Professor Diane Desierto of Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, also acknowledges this potential for ESC rights in her new book, Public Policy in International Economic Law: The ICESCR in Trade, Finance, and Investment (Oxford University Press, Feb 2015), but she criticizes states for failing to fully translate their ICESCR commitments into practical actions under international economic law.  The publisher describes the book as follows:

“States reject inequality when they choose to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), but to date the ICESCR has not yet figured prominently in the policy calculus behind States’ international economic decisions. This book responds to the modern challenge of operationalizing the ICESCR, particularly in the context of States’ decisions within international trade, finance, and investment. Differentiating between public policy mechanisms and institutional functional mandates in the international trade, finance, and investment systems, this book shows legal and policy gateways for States to feasibly translate their fundamental duties to respect, protect, and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights into their trade, finance, and investment commitments, agreements, and contracts.