2017
Measuring Compliance
663
The scheme obviously has consequences. It could be argued that allowing obligations to inflate or deflate depending on the prevailing context
within which the duty-bearer is situated leaves open the possibility that,
for some duty-bearers, the unconditional obligation incumbent upon them
would be to do nothing.30 In Onora O’Neill’s view, for example, “a premature
rhetoric of rights can inflate expectations while masking a lack of claimable
entitlements.”31 While this is theoretically true (these further considerations
could render any level of realization of these rights overly burdensome) it
is extremely unlikely within the contemporary idea of human rights, specifically, with respect to the importance and minimalist nature of the interests
they protect. Nevertheless, these relevant considerations could, and would
most probably, require that “social welfare” be realized to a qualified extent.
The idea of conditionality deals with the problem of burdensomeness
and scarcity insomuch as it identifies the principles and rules regarding what
duty-bearers have to do to fulfill social rights. But as David Bilchitz rightly
asserts, “ultimately, judgement will be required in translating these into
particular actions and obligations.”32 The idea of conditionality gives little
detail on what kind of social welfare these rights guarantee, what share of
resources is adequate for satisfying it, or how resources are to be allocated
among different needs when resources are not sufficient to meet them all. It
is this incompleteness, yet dependence, that gives rise to the central dilemma:
How can the content of social rights be determined if resource conditionality
allows for it to differ across resource contexts, and how then is it possible to
ascertain violations of these rights if the content is not determinate?
III. DEALING WITH THE DILEMMA
If social rights are conditional rights, but conditionality gives rise to the
maximum available resources dilemma, dealing with the dilemma and determining the content of social rights along conditional lines must then be
approached with a two-step process. The task first calls for a description of
the “goods” an individual requires in order for their fundamental interests
to be satisfied. Since receipt of these goods is conditional, it then requires a
test of whether full provision of these goods is possible within the particular
community given the prevailing contemporary human, social, and economic
constraints faced. By implication, this is a test of the degree to which resource
30. Robert E. Robertson, Measuring State Compliance with the Obligation to Devote the
“Maximum Available Resources” to Realizing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,
16 Hum. Rts. Q. 693 (1994).
31. Onora O’neill, Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning
133 (1996).
32. Bilchitz, supra note 15, at 101.