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Welfare Rights and Human Rights*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

David Watson
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Abstract

Recent discussions of a ‘welfare rights’ approach in social work have suggested that the European Convention on Human Rights might provide a useful framework, a list of service objectives against which present provision might be assessed. In the present paper the author argues that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to be preferred, because of its inclusion of social and economic rights. However, there are philosophical and political objections to such a wide-ranging list of human rights. The author attempts to answer these objections in order to release the Universal Declaration as a viable framework for a welfare rights approach.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 31 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 See for example, Biestek, F. P., The Casework Relationship, London: Allen & Unwin, 1961Google Scholar, and Moffett, Jonathan, Concepts in Casework Treatment, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968.Google Scholar

2 For example, ‘A Code of Ethics for Social Work’, Discussion Paper No. 2, British Association of Social Workers, 1973.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Pinker, Robert, ‘Social Policy and Social Justice’, Journal of Social Policy, 1974, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 Vasey, Wayne, ‘Social Welfare as a Human Right’, in Social Work Values in an Age of Discontent, Council on Social Work Education, 1970.Google Scholar

6 Walton, R. G., ‘Welfare rights and social work: ambivalence in action’ in Jones, Howard (ed.), Towards a New Social Work, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.Google Scholar

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8 Articles 8 and 9 mention the protection of health, article 11 proclaims the right to form and join trade unions, presumably for the protection of economic interests, and article 2 of the first Protocol to the Convention adds the right to education.

9 Brooke, op. cit., p. 248.

10 Brooke's examples, articles 6(1) and 8(1) of the European Convention, are articles 10 and 12, respectively, of the Universal Declaration.

11 Vasey, op. cit., p. 84.

12 Cranston, M., ‘Human Rights, Real and Supposed’, in Raphael, D. D. (ed.), Political Theory and The Rights of Man, London: Macmillan, 1967Google Scholar. The arguments, recur in Cranston 1973, op. cit., and in Downie, R. S., Roles and Values, London: Methuen, 1971, p. 49.Google Scholar

13 1967, op. cit., p. 50.

14 Ibid., p. 43.

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16 1967, op. cit., p. 42.

17 Cf. Walton, op. cit., p. 104.

18 1967, op. cit., pp. 50–1.

19 Ibid., p. 53.

20 1973, op. cit., p. 96.

21 Raphael, D. D., ‘Human Rights, Old and New’Google Scholar, in Raphael, op. cit., pp. 65–6.

22 Ibid., pp. 63–4.

23 Ibid., p. 64.

24 1967, op. cit., p. 51.

25 Ibid., p. 52.

26 Ibid., p. 52.

27 Op. cit., p. 63.

28 1967, op. cit., p. 51.

29 Ibid., p. 43.

30 Cf. Hill, Michael J., ‘Selectivity for the poor’Google Scholar, in Townsend and Bosanquet, op. cit., and Kaim, P. R.-Caudle, ‘Selectivity and the Social Services’, Lloyds Bank Review, no. 92, April 1969.Google Scholar

31 1967, op. cit., p. 52.

32 Cf. McKeon, Richard, ‘Human Rights in the World Today’, in Human Rights, Comments and Interpretations, UNESCO, 1949.Google Scholar

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34 Somerhausen, L., ‘Human Rights in the World Today’, in UNESCO, 1949Google Scholar, op. cit., p. 32.

35 Tawney, R. H., The Acquisitive Society, London: Methuen, 1937.Google Scholar