Former Osgoode Hall law professor and Supreme Court justice, Madame Louise Arbour, recently completed a four-year term as the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights.
She will take on the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Crisis Group in July 2009, but before that she’s making a brief return to the Canadian human rights scene.
Earlier today I heard her speak at the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) convention on the National Day of Mourning, an annual event recognized by the Federal government since 1991 to remember workers who lost their lives or were injured on the job.
Madame Arbour is perhaps best known in constitutional circles for her dissent in Gosselin v. Quebec, which would have given social and economic rights to Canadians.
Despite the court’s decision to the contrary, Madame Arbour is still making the case for social and economic rights in the future of Canada.
She characterized a dichotomy between the West and the East, with the former claiming to champion liberty, the latter championing social and economic rights, and neither side really hearing each other in the process.
Her talk was premised on the Roosevelt’s fundemental freedoms that gave way to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically the freedom from fear and the freedom from want. She related the former fear to legal abuses by Western governments in the so-called “war on terrorism.” The second fear is increasingly relevant in our tough economic times, the true test of which will be our treatment of migrant workers.
The key to our true security lies in addressing social and economic problems by dealing with them as fundamental rights, and the sooner we can realize this the safer and more prosperous we will all be.
I fundamentally disagree. Social and economic “rights” are not consistent with our constitutional regime, our history, and the basic concept of liberal democracy. A “right” is an injunction against state action, not an entitlement against our fellow taxpayer. The Gosselin decision was correctly decided and Arbour’s dissent was completely out to lunch.
Putting aside the logistical problems of social and economic “rights”, judicial recognition of them would foreclose one of the central political debates in society–which is the role of the state in the economic life of the nation. Only elected representatives have the legitimacy to determine how much to tax, how much to spend, and what areas that spending should be directed towards. If we go the route of social and economic “rights” I would suggest that we forego the formality of elections, parliament, and government all together. What would be the point? A polity that allows for judicial enforcement of social and economic rights is no better than any de facto communist dictatorship.
Hopefully Canada’s judiciary stays the course and remains true to a negative conception of what constitutes a “right”.
I completely agree with the above. Nothing entitles anyone to a living. A living must be earned. Any notion that the state must provide people with a living is an extraordinarily dangerous policy that is in no way compatible with the freedoms we enjoy.
Andrew Dobson also addressed this in Fairness and Futurity (1999) in the context of sustainable development,
In this context, Mme Arbour is also referring to sustainable development of our civilization. At this point definitions of sustainable development would be useful.
We are not living within our ecosystem’s capacity or truly concerned about the needs of future generations. This approach is not only short-sighted and imprudent, but will eventually result in the erosion of the other political rights and liberty.
Addressing poverty and social needs of the world is the best way to ensure our own continuity.
American environmental lawyer, James Gustave Speth, said in Red Sky at Morning (2006),
Omar – I have no issue with the notion that addressing poverty and environmental degradation are matters of the utmost important. The sole issue when we discuss “rights” is the appropriate venue for decision making.
Okay, good to know. The point is that when UDHR was drafted it consisted of more than what we limit it to in Canada. They may not yet be constitutional rights domestically, but they are recognized rights internationally.
When you say it’s incompatible with the history of our society, I say that it is not – no more than any of the rights we claim to champion today but failed to uphold in previous years.
Addendum
Former Premier Roy Romanow recently touched on this,