Paper short abstract:

Human rights have been called the dominant moral framework of our time, a human rights economy requires transparency, accountability and a broad space for social dialogue, scrutiny and participation.

Paper long abstract:

Human rights have been called the dominant moral framework of our time, or the “lingua franca of justice” and there is strong consensus that economic systems and decisions have clear moral and ethical implications. There is no question that the economies we live in structure our daily experiences, opportunities and life outcomes, and represent systems which can profoundly affect our ability to enjoy our rights to decent work, to shelter, to adequate healthcare, political participation, a life free from violence and more.

However, economic institutions and structures are also seen as the key impediment to the realisation of human rights. In our initial work around a Rights-Based Economy (Donald et al. 2020), we defined the purpose of the RBE as “to guarantee the material, social and environmental conditions necessary for all people to live with dignity on a flourishing planet.” Human rights, we argue, are important to focus on in discussions about the economy, not only because of the human rights impacts our economies have, but because they constitute an internationally agreed normative framework that applies to all areas of public policy, including economic policy and economic institutions and structures of the production and consumption that are seen to be part of the market sphere of society, including re-organising production and consumption. We also argue that a RBE has important cross-border dimensions in both states and economic actors not undermining the realisation of human rights in other countries and societies by their actions.