Rekkevidden av statens menneske­rettslige plikt til å bekjempe økonomisk og sosial ulikhet

Although economic and social human rights have been part of legal and judicial review in various national and international jurisdictions for a respectable time, the use of thorough legal and judicial review on social welfare politics seems to be rather reluctant. Legal professionals restrain their review to the minimum for economic and budget reasons. Despite several human rights norms requiring state action, the question remains if chosen actions are all just politics or if these actions are responsible to judicial scrutiny. The article argues for a thorough legal analysis through the lens of the right to non-discrimination and right to equality drawing heavily on the work of legal scholar Sandra Fredman’s theory on ‘substantive equality’ and its four dimensions: The redistributive dimension, the recognition dimension, the participation dimension and the transformative dimension.