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STORRS, CT— The hurricanes that blew into the Gulf Coast this summer not only took hundreds of lives and caused billions of dollars in damage, they also uncovered a shocking, desperate poverty some may have thought was confined to Third World nations, but was instead found in a major American city.
The plight of the poor during these disasters served as a reminder that the concept of human rights is no longer confined to civil and political freedoms alone. Rather, whether it is the poor of the Mississippi Delta or the challenges faced by workers in a world defined by increasing globalization, basic economic rights are emerging as a new component in the field and are the basis for an international conference being held Oct. 27 – 29 at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
The conference: Economic Rights: Conceptual, Measurement and Policy Issues, was organized by UConn’s Human Rights Institute (HRI) and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, and will feature presentations from leading figures in the field of economic human rights.
“The concept of economic rights is not something that has been given much attention during the last 50 years,” said Richard A. Wilson, director of HRI and The Gladstein Distinguished Chair in Human Rights at UConn. “However, with the end of the Cold War now
more than 10 years behind us, there is a growing movement to include socioeconomic freedoms in the larger human rights picture. This conference is a strong and still early step in that direction.”
Since this is still an emerging field, organizers hope to use the three-day conference to define and establish benchmarks for economic rights. The conference will culminate in the publication of an edited volume of papers written by leading scholars in the field they hope will make a significant and timely contribution to the field of human rights along with key social science disciplines. The volume will be released by a scholarly press in 2006.
Some questions and concepts the conference will examine include:
- Issues of economic deprivation and inequality have become socially and politically salient – not only for their moral force but also because these conditions are the harbingers of social unrest and political violence.
- States that safeguard human rights can sometimes achieve higher levels of human well being than those single-mindedly pursuing economic growth, or people with higher incomes.
- What conception of economic rights is politically viable – in the short-run, the long-run, and across cultures?
- How are economic rights implemented in practice? What are the obstacles to implementation?
One of the goals of the conference is to provide an “on-the-ground,” realistic perspective of the state of economic rights in the world. Wiktor Osiatynsky, the first Distinguished Visiting Gladstein Professor of Human Rights, who drafted economic rights elements of the Polish Constitution and advised lawmakers and policy advocates throughout the developing world on the practical aspects of codifying economic rights, will speak.
The conference will serve as an intellectual focal point for the Dodd Center’s 10 th Anniversary celebrations, which have as their central theme, Globalization and Human Rights. The events will be held in Konover Auditorium, located in the Dodd Research Center. For a campus map and directions, visit: http://www.uconn.edu/campuses/storrs.php
For more on the conference and UConn’s Human Rights Institute visit: http://www.humanrights.uconn.edu/.
October Releases
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