European Human Rights 1919-1950: From Negative to Positive Example? The Prioritisation of 'First Generation' Rights?

Abstract

The United Nations General Assembly’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights (1950) were contrasting responses to the ‘paradigm shift’ in social and political attitudes induced by the dysfunctional behaviour of the western world’s economic and financial systems, and the attendant social trauma, political extremism, war-mongering and racism of the preceding twenty years. At the core of this attitudinal shift were demands for counter-cyclical state spending to obviate the chronic unemployment of the 1930s; for a ‘welfare state’ in which there would be universal access to health services, education and social security; and for a ‘free society’ in which civil and political liberties would be guaranteed. These demands were crystallised between 1939 and 1945 (1) by the manner in which unemployment was mopped up in Germany by Hitler’s rearmament programme and subsequently in Britain and the United States by government war-time expenditure; (2) by the widespread feelings of ‘entitlement’ engendered by a conflict which cost 100 million lives and inflicted unparalleled hardship and physical devastation on civilians; and (3) by the radical social agendas proclaimed by the Atlantic Charter and Chapter IX of the United 2 Nations Charter (‘International and Social Co-operation’). After elaborating on the historical context which explains the unprecedented emphasis of the 1948 Universal Declaration on social and economic rights, this paper goes on to discuss why the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, which established the European Court of Human Rights as a bastion of civil and political rights, completely ignored social and economic rights.