VI-f. Rights Imply Entitlements

The application of the human rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments must be worked out at the local level. National governments, representing their respective states, are expected to elaborate and concretize these rights through their national law, policy, and practice. Thus, human rights are concretized locally in the form of specific entitlements. The state at the same time makes commitments to assure their realization, through means appropriate to the particular local circumstances.

Table VI-1 outlines the terminology we propose. Entitlements and commitments are the localized versions (the adaptations to local circumstances) of the global human rights and their corresponding state obligations.

Table VI-1. Rights/Obligations and Entitlements/Commitments

Local (non-universal) commitments usually will be made at the national level, but they may also be made at regional or sub-national levels.

If one has a right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, one must have specific entitlements. Following Amartya Sen,

. . . entitlements are enforceable claims on the delivery of goods, services, or protection by specific others. Rights exist when one party can effectively insist that another delivers goods, services, or protections, and third parties will act to reinforce (or at least not hinder) their delivery (Eide 1995, p. 94).

Those who are to fulfill rights/entitlements must be obligated/committed to do so, and they must be held accountable for their performance. This is the meaning of enforceability. Thus, there are three key parties: the holder of the right or entitlement (discussed in this section), the party obligated or committed to assuring the realization of that right or entitlement (discussed in Section VII), and the party who oversees the relationship and assures that the obligations or commitments are in fact fulfilled (discussed in Section VIII). Where there is an entitlement to something, there must be some sort of remedy that can be pursued if the rights holder does not get that to which he or she is entitled.

If there is no institutional mechanism through which one can press one's claims, there is no genuine entitlement. In many cases there is an explicit legal arrangement spelling out the rights/entitlement, the obligations/commitments, and the accountability system. However, in some cases it may take other forms, such as a widely understood and accepted moral code, overseen by recognized authority figures in the society.

If you rent an apartment, the owner is entitled to a rent payment from you each month.  That has nothing to do with human rights. However, this relationship illustrates the meaning of entitlement.  The apartment owner is entitled to your monthly payment.  You don't pay just if and when you feel like it. You do not give your rent money as a kind of charity. You owe it. And most importantly, if the owner does not get the rent money when it is due, there are some specific actions she can take to correct the situation, such as evicting you or taking you to court.

All contracts imply entitlements. If I have a contract with you to paint my garage, and I give you the amount of money specified in the contract, I am then entitled to have the job done. If you don't fulfill your obligation, there are agencies to which I can take my complaint. The special thing that distinguishes contracts from other sorts of agreements is that they are enforceable. A fundamental aspect of legal systems is the mechanism for enforcing contracts, to assure that important agreements are in fact honored. In sophisticated contracts the procedures and penalties for dealing with non-compliance may be spelled out in detail.

Not all entitlements are derived from human rights. A city may allow all senior citizens to use the public transport system without charge, but there is no human rights basis for such an entitlement. Free transport may be a local right; it is not a human right.

Entitlements can be specified in terms of services, concretized in statements of the form, "If you meet criteria x, you are entitled to services y."  For example, it might be specified that "All persons over 65 years of age will get free health services" or "All children attending public schools up to grade six will be given a free lunch". Such  entitlements are not universal, but they may be derived from or implied by universal human rights.

While not all entitlements are derived from human rights, all human rights imply entitlements.  More specifically, they imply entitlements to action by government. In the formulation, "If you meet criteria x, you are entitled to services y", services can be interpreted broadly, and understood to include material goods, protection, respect, and other things of value. Thus, under the freedom of religion, we can say "If your neighbor threatens your freedom to practice your religion, you are entitled to protection from your government."  It is not only economic rights that imply entitlements; all human rights imply entitlements to government action.

Governments have an obligation to establish institutional arrangements under which people can provide for themselves. However, no matter how good these are, even in well-functioning social systems there are likely to be people who, for various reasons, "fall through the cracks" and require special care. There should be special programs for these people, to deal with poverty, hunger, physical and mental disability, and others kinds of stresses.

Social programs generally are designed to deliver specific services. Sometimes their clients are entitled to these services, but often they are not.  Many social programs can be adapted to fit into the human rights approach by specifying that their clients are entitled to specific services, and providing the clients with effective remedies they can pursue if they feel they have not gotten that to which they are entitled.

Local nutrition rights (entitlements) can be specified either in terms of specific services, e.g., every child is assured an intake of at least so many calories per day, or in terms of specific outcomes (e.g., good nutrition status, measured anthropometrically). It is generally preferable to frame entitlements in terms of desired outcomes (results), and then call for appropriate services (inputs) needed to achieve that outcome. Those services need not be spelled out in detail in the law. The law could say that the government is obligated to provide nutritional services, in accordance with the best professional advice of nutritionists, until the child no longer meets the entitlement criteria. Details regarding the exact nature of the services would not have to be spelled out in the main body of the law, but statutes and regulations could be formulated to provide guidance. The services might vary according to particular local circumstances.

The basic obligation of states with regard to the human right to food and nutrition is to assure that people are adequately nourished, as part of an overall adequate standard of living. Various different means to that end may be pursued, so long as they do not violate other human rights. As Asbj�rn Eide explains:

The duties of States to ensure an adequate standard of life for everyone within their jurisdiction are obligations primarily of result, not so much of conduct; the measures mentioned in Article 11 of the CESCR are indicative and certainly do not cover the entire range of measures that can be taken. The essential issue is whether everyone is provided with a situation whereby (s)he can enjoy an adequate standard of living. To ensure such a situation is dependent on the specific circumstances in the country concerned; therefore precise obligations of conduct with general applicability cannot easily be drawn up (Eide 1995, pp. 99-100).

"Obligations of conduct" here can be understood as equivalent to obligations to deliver specific services.

Some writers say human rights are entitlements (e.g.,Wiseberg, p. xix). It is better to say that human rights imply entitlements. Entitlements are the local concretizations of human rights. They should be identified through an open, democratic debate based on a good understanding of both international human rights law and local circumstances.

Continue to VI-g. Determining Local Entitlements

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Subsection VI-f last updated on June 13, 1999