Methodology

When CESR was established in 1993, the field of economic and social rights had suffered from decades of neglect, leaving few examples of effective advocacy. Moreover, Cold War politics had created the false impression that economic and social rights were "aspirations" rather than rights, and impossible to measure or to enforce legally, and required massive government expenditures.

Today it can be demonstrated that economic and social rights are well-established in international and constitutional laws. They have been enforced through court action, and are no more costly to implement than traditional human rights such as the right to a fair trial. Yet these legal advances have had limited impact impact on impoverished people’s daily lives. From the outset CESR focused on developing a methodology to address inequality and power dynamics in real life situations.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we drew on tested practices from groups in related fields. Through years of effort, development experts have formulated numerous indicators for measuring social and economic inequalities; human rights organizations have focused public attention on government abuses and advocated for policy change; environmental and women’s groups have organized effective coalitions to challenge injustice at both the local and global levels; and grassroots activists have worked inside communities to educate and mobilize people. These various successful approaches became the blueprint for CESR’s model of research, advocacy, collaboration, and education.

• research with a broad range of social scientists to document human rights violations.
• advocacy for legal accountability and promote policy change;
• collaboration with local groups to ensure that projects are driven by the concerns of affected communities; and
• education to raise public awareness of the human rights dimensions of poverty and inequality.

Effective economic and social rights work depends on all of these elements working together. Multidisciplinary research exposes how deliberate policy decisions in education, health, housing, and other areas leave entire communities on the margins of survival. Advocacy demonstrates that these decisions are not just bad policy, but human rights violations that must be challenged and can be changed. Collaboration mobilizes the full range of experience and expertise needed to remedy violations at the local and international levels. And education enables affected communities to understand the root causes of human rights violations are not just their failures but deep rooted biases and built-in inequality, and they therefore take the lead in demanding change.

Over the years, CESR has refined its methodology through concrete economic and social rights projects in the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. While still an emerging field of practice, this new human rights framework has already achieved tangible results and holds great promise for challenging injustice around the world. For impact of our projects view advocacy by country section.

"The Center for Economic and Social Rights is developing an enormously imaginative and effective strategy for promoting economic and social rights that combines interdisciplinary scientific research with the support of grassroots organizations."
      -- Scott Greathead, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.