Invigorating Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the South Pacific: A conceptual approach

Abstract

A quick glance at the human rights landscape across the South Pacific region reveals problems for economic, social and cultural rights. Despite global efforts towards mainstreaming these rights, coupled with increasing regional and national embrace of these rights elsewhere, the South Pacific largely presents a picture of resistance to the formal recognition of these rights. This paper accentuates a gaping lacuna in the South Pacific approach to economic, social and cultural rights and examines the rationalisations for this scenario. Highlighting the human development and poverty challenges in the smaller states of the South Pacific, this paper contends that economic, social and cultural rights constitute veritable platforms for addressing some of these critical challenges. Despite deep rooted conceptual, normative and institutional obstacles to enhancing the status of these rights, this paper canvasses a multidimensional approach towards invigorating these rights and identifies some trajectories for securing their goals in the South Pacific.