ABSTRACT
The human rights approach allows for a complex interaction between individual rights, collective rights, and collective action. It offers feminist economics a widely accepted ethical language with which to assess economic policies without limiting the answers to a consideration of a handful of core variables, such as gross domestic product (GDP), and without neglecting ethical concerns, such as various types of inequality. While economic policy analysis often focuses on a select set of narrow goals, such as the growth of GDP or keeping inflation low, the human rights approach represents an alternative evaluative framework that stresses a broader range of objectives, emphasizing the substantive freedoms and choices people enjoy. Meaningful rights require corresponding duties, and there are a number of principles and obligations that underpin the human rights framework. In May 2012, in the wake of the global economic crisis, human rights considerations were drawn to the attention of governments of states that were party to the ICESCR.
