Australia���s Engagement with Economic and Social Rights

This book is a contemporary socio-legal study of Australia’s protection of economic and social rights. Despite Australia’s hortatory language of compliance with international rights standards its translation of these standards into domestic law and policy has been found wanting. In considering Australia’s compliance across the policy areas of health housing labour and social security it is argued that Australia’s failings can be understood in terms of its institutional framework. This framework provides incomplete legal protection for rights and leaves that protection almost exclusively in the realm of politics and policymaking an arena still dominated by neoliberalism and a political culture averse to the protection and promotion of economic and social rights.