ABSTRACT
Economic liberties are largely absent from the International Bill of Human Rights. Yet freedoms to choose one’s occupation, to own productive property and to capitalize on economic opportunities all play a crucial role in enabling individuals to lead their lives. This has led scholars to ask whether economic liberties should qualify as human rights. In this chapter, I examine the case for including among the list of human rights a right to own productive property. I argue that proponents of recognizing a human right to own productive property can avoid objections raised against their case if the right is understood not merely as a liberty to acquire productive property, but as a claim to a certain amount of property. That amount is what is required to ensure an adequate standard of living as specified by the other human rights in the Bill of Human Rights. The argument centers on the role that ownership of productive property plays in helping to realize the ideal of “status egalitarianism” in the contemporary practice of human rights.
