Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: A vast majority of states have formally committed to respect, protect, and progressively fulfill the right to social security by ratifying human rights and ILO conventions.Accordingly, social security systems should guarantee indiscriminate access to health services, provide benefits in the case of work losses due to illness, disability, death of family members, old age, unemployment, and maternity, and further support families, children and adult dependents.As a matter of law and fact, however, social security systems in developing countries usually benefit only a minority of the population.From a human rights perspective, enormous efforts are necessary to increase the coverage of social security systems, reaching people in the informal sector and from poorer parts of the population.*** Only some twenty percent of the world's working age population benefits from comprehensive social protection, according to an estimate of the first and most recent global report on social security of the International Labour Organization (ILO). 1 The report illustrates that in many countries, access to social security systems in the realm of medical care, pensions, unemployment benefits, coverage of work-related accidents and diseases, or social assistance is uncertain.Particularly in low-income countries, people lack even the most basic security guarantees.And yet the right to social security is an internationally guaranteed human right.The present contribution exposes the legal sources and content of the right to social security, and highlights how important its implementation is also for developing countries. The Codification of the Human Right to Social SecurityAlready the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) stipulates a right to social security.Article 22 establishes that "Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality".A.
Source: Verfassung in Recht und Übersee
Author: Michael Krennerich
Language: English
Topic: Human Rights and Immigration
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: World Bank Group
OpenAlex ID: W2327567192