Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions : Responding to Complex Global Challenges

What does the right to the continuous improvement of living conditions in Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights really mean and how can it contribute to social change? The book explores how this underdeveloped right can have valuable application in response to global problems of poverty, inequality and climate destruction, through an in-depth consideration of its meaning.

The book seeks to interpret and give meaning to the right as a legal standard, giving it practical value for those whose living conditions are inadequate. It locates the right within broader philosophical and political debates, whilst also assessing the challenges to its realisation. It also explores how the right relates to human rights more generally and considers its application to issues of gender, care and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The contributors deeply probe the meaning of 'living conditions', suggesting that these encompass more than the basic rights to housing, water, food, and clothing. The chapters provide a range of doctrinal, historical and philosophical engagements through grounded analysis and imaginative interpretation.

With a foreword by Sandra Liebenberg (former Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the book includes chapters from renowned and emerging scholars working across disciplines from around the world.

Jessie Hohmann is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She is an internationally recognised expert on the right to housing in international law. Her research also engages with the material culture, objects and materiality of international law, and with Indigenous Peoples and international law.
Jessie's 2013 monograph The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities (Hart) was shortlisted for the Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. Before joining UTS, she was Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary, University of London (2012-2019) and held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (2009-2012).

Beth Goldblatt is Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia and Visiting Professor of the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She works in the areas of feminist legal theory, equality and discrimination law, comparative constitutional law, transitional justice, disability, family law, and human rights with a focus on economic and social rights, and the right to social security in particular.
Prior to joining UTS, she held positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney and the University of the Witwatersrand. She is admitted as an attorney in South Africa and worked for many years on human rights litigation, research and advocacy at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of the Witwatersrand.