ABSTRACT
This chapter examines that the fragility of social rights in times of crisis is determined by their presumptive differences in 'nature' with respect to civil rights. In the philosophical literature on human rights, some 'minimalist' stances have denied that social rights can be seen as genuine human rights. Judicial institutions can protect individual rights more effectively than social rights because the latter imply an understanding of citizenship that is incompatible with bourgeois law, whilst the former are its most perspicuous manifestation. Fernando Atria rejects the contractualist ethical and political understanding of social rights and proposes to rescue the 'socialist idea' of social rights. Conditionality can be defined as the attachment of conditions to the receipt of public benefits. The sanctioning aspect of rights conditionality is emphasised, with a resulting stigmatisation and exclusion rather than inclusion. A proper understanding of dignity would call for a level of social protection and security much higher than that of mere survival.
