Public Policy in International Economic Law: The ICESCR in Trade, Investment and Finance

摘要

In international law, economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights have emerged out of the shadow of civil and political rights. Even though the two sets of rights emanated from the same source - the Universal Declaration on Human Rights - the argument could be made that economic rights were always likely to be treated differently from political rights, whether or not the Cold War schism effected their formal separation. To be sure, one's political or philosophical stance affects one's perspective on ESC rights. Western liberalists tend to see them as inexorable consequences of well managed political freedoms, whereas communitarians argue that they must be secured even if (or necessarily) at the expense of political freedoms. But the very fact that ESC rights directly engage with economic policies and principles means that attending to political philosophy alone will only ever tell half the story. The burgeoning corpus of international economic law that has grown up alongside international human rights law must, therefore, have an effect on how the latter is implemented in practice. And, one might suppose, vice versa.