State positive action in Human Rights

Abstract

States positive duties have increased in quantity and quality during the last decades. In some cases, States have obligations to change societal patters to safeguard basic values of society, even against dominant majorities in the population. We experience the need for state positive action when facing discrimination against women or against minority groups. In other cases, States play an important role in fulfilling certain economic and social rights. Here, State proactive role in fulfilling social and economic rights is central in the development of the individual and the community. However, in some cases this action presupposes a complex institutional structure to be encountered only in a number of industrialized states. This panel examines state positive action in both situations, to safeguard basic values of society as well as to fulfill certain economic and social rights. First, it will examine the distribution and expansiveness of minority rights protections in constitutions, whether it is more likely to achieve the inclusion of rights that foster group autonomy than other rights that actually provide influence and power. On economic and social rights, the panel will explore poverty and the implications that different forms of governance have on the rights of the poor and will question the obstacles to developing universal policy standards for protecting rights in informal economies. Related to poverty, the panel will examine financial exclusion. Access to popular financial resources like savings accounts, loans, cashless transfers, and other conventional banking services are also important tools to help communities develop businesses to gain a greater quality of life. Finally, access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is being approached as a new human right. A low access to energy diminishes the possibility of enjoyment of human rights and represents a growing failure from governments to fulfill positive obligations to protect its citizens’ human rights and fundamental freedoms.

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