The Declaration's Economic and Social Articles

Article 23: the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions and to protection against unemployment; equal pay for equal work without any discrimination; just and favourable remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity, supplemented if necessary by other means of social protection; and the right to form and join trade unions.

Article 23 is the unorganised worker's article, and its promise of remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity is what article 43 of the Constitution restates as a living wage.

Article 24: the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25 names three of this paper's groups in one sentence. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. And motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance, with all children, whether born in or out of wedlock, enjoying the same social protection.

Article 26: the right to education, free and compulsory at least in the elementary and fundamental stages; technical and professional education generally available and higher education equally accessible on merit; education directed to the full development of the human personality and the strengthening of respect for human rights; and the prior right of parents to choose the kind of education given to their children.

Article 27: the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and the right to protection of the moral and material interests of one's own authorship.

Articles 28 to 30: the closing frame

Article 28: everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights of the Declaration can be fully realised. This is an unusual provision and worth quoting, because it says that a State that leaves its social order untouched has not discharged its obligation.

Article 29: everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible; rights are subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society; and rights may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30: nothing in the Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity aimed at the destruction of any of the rights set forth.

Worked example

Any question asking what a disadvantaged group is entitled to at international law.

Give article 15 for the stateless person, and say it is the whole of the international law of statelessness in two sentences.

Give article 21's universal and equal suffrage as the answer to marginalisation.

Give articles 22 to 27 as the economic and social half, and quote article 25's list of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood and old age.

Give article 28 as the provision that makes the social order itself an obligation.

Close on article 29's duties, because article 51A of the Constitution is its Indian descendant.

What it does NOT mean

It does not mean these are enforceable in an Indian court on their own. They are not; article 21 and the statutes are the enforceable route.

It does not mean the economic articles are less important. For a disadvantaged group they are usually the ones that matter most.

And it does not mean article 29's limitation clause is a general override. It is confined to what is determined by law and to the four listed purposes.

Quick revision

• Article 15: the right to a nationality, and no arbitrary deprivation of it. The whole international law of statelessness in two sentences.
• Article 21: participation in government, equal access to public service, and universal and equal suffrage. The answer to marginalisation, delivered in India from 1950.
• Article 22: social security, realised in accordance with the organisation and resources of each State, to the standard of what is indispensable for dignity. The ancestor of progressive realisation.
• Article 23: work, equal pay for equal work, remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity, and trade unions. The unorganised worker's article.
• Article 25 names unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood and old age in one sentence, and gives motherhood and childhood special care, with children born in or out of wedlock enjoying the same protection.
• Article 26 education, free and compulsory at the elementary stage, with the prior right of parents to choose. Article 27 cultural life and authorship.
• Article 28: a right to a social and international order in which these rights can be realised. Article 29: duties to the community, and a limitation clause confined to law and four purposes. Article 30: nothing implies a right to destroy the rights.
• Articles 12 to 20: privacy, movement, asylum, nationality, marriage with free and full consent, property, thought, expression and association, with no compulsion to belong to an association.

Test yourself

1. Which Declaration articles matter most to the groups on this paper, and why? Article 15 matters most to the stateless person: everyone has the right to a nationality, and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality nor denied the right to change it. Those two sentences are the whole international law of statelessness in outline, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is an attempt to make them operational by fixing who must grant nationality and when. Article 21 matters most to a marginalised group: it gives the right to take part in government directly or through freely chosen representatives, equal access to public service, and elections by universal and equal suffrage, which India delivered from the commencement of the Constitution at a time when most of the world had not. Article 23 matters most to the unorganised worker: the right to work, to just and favourable conditions, to equal pay for equal work without any discrimination, and to remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity supplemented if necessary by other means of social protection, which article 43 of the Constitution restates as a living wage.

And article 25 names three of this paper's groups in a single sentence: the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond a person's control, together with a right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being including food, clothing, housing and medical care. Its second paragraph gives motherhood and childhood a right to special care and assistance and provides that all children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

2. What does article 22 add, and what does it concede? It adds that everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security, and that everyone is entitled to realisation of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and for the free development of his personality. Two of its phrases repay attention. The standard it sets is what is indispensable for dignity, which is the same idea Indian courts later located inside article 21 when they read the right to live with human dignity into it, so the international and the Indian formulations converge on the same word. And it concedes that realisation is to be through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organisation and resources of each State, which is the ancestor of the progressive realisation formula in article 2(1) of the Economic and Social Covenant. That concession is honest and it is also the opening through which most non-delivery is defended, which is why an answer should name it rather than skip past it.

3. What do the closing articles do? Article 28 provides that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms of the Declaration can be fully realised. It is an unusual provision and worth quoting in an answer on disadvantaged groups, because it says that a State which leaves its social order untouched while formally guaranteeing rights has not discharged its obligation; the disadvantage is in the order, and the order is what has to change. Article 29 provides that everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible, and that rights are subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society, and may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Article 51A of the Constitution, the Fundamental Duties, is its Indian descendant. And article 30 provides that nothing in the Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights set forth, which is the abuse of rights clause both Covenants later reproduced.