Funding Social Protection from Data After COVID-19: Potential Contribution of the Right to Benefit from Scientific Progress

Author(s):  
Jayson S. Lamchek
2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (09) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Wyndham

This article discusses benefits and challenges in engaging engineers in connecting engineering and human rights. Engineers have a vital role to play in giving visibility to human rights, particularly in matters relevant to their field or discipline. Academic instruction in ethics is increasingly viewed as integral to a rigorous educational program in science or engineering. The Science and Human Rights Coalition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is one network of professional societies that recognize a role for scientists and engineers in human rights. An important way in which engineers can protect and promote human rights is by ensuring that the products they develop benefit people in need. Engineers have human rights that need to be respected in order for the engineering enterprise to flourish and the benefits of engineering to be broadly enjoyed. Engineers have opportunities to contribute to human rights compliance when designing and implementing projects, and to contribute to the realization of the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Kaltenborn

AbstractThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development contains a very ambitious poverty reduction schedule: According to Sustainable Development Goal 1 extreme poverty shall be completely eradicated within the next 15 years (SDG 1.1), and also other forms of poverty shall be reduced within the same period at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages (SDG 1.2). Governments are requested to “(i)mplement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable” (SDG 1.3). The authors of the Agenda refer to the concept of so-called social protection floors which has been identified as an important instrument in the fight against extreme poverty and therefore has attracted much attention in recent development policy debates. In June 2012 the General Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) had adopted the Social Protection Floors Recommendation. In this document ILO members are urged, as a first step, to establish basic social security guarantees, including access to essential health care and basic income security for all residents of their countries and, as a second step, to systematically extend these basic social security guarantees into more comprehensive strategies. If we look for legal answers to the global challenge of extreme poverty, then social protection law – and in particular the human right to social security – deserves special attention. Based on the research framework which has been presented by Haglund and Stryker in their book Closing the Rights Gap. From Human Rights to Social Transformation (2015) this article will try to analyze which role the legal systems in the Global South will play in implementing SDG 1 at the national level and in closing the “right to social security-gap”. Haglund and Stryker describe, inter alia, two models for social rights realization which represent alternative approaches to the MDG/SDG concept: (a) the so-called multistage spiral model whose main focus lies on the different phases which new norms have to go through when they are implemented in a state’s society, and (b) the “policy legalization model” which highlights the role of litigation in ensuring social rights compliance. Furthermore the article will deal with the responsibility of the international community in this area of development policy.


Author(s):  
Hannah Lambie-Mumford

Chapter 3 sets out the key theories with which the book engages: food insecurity and the human right to food. Following on from a conceptualisation and definition of food insecurity, the right to food is introduced. Emphasis is placed on normative element of ‘adequacy and sustainability of food availability and access’ and on the state’s obligation to ‘respect, protect and fulfil the right to food’. Theories of ‘othering’ and ‘agency’ are employed to assess the social acceptability of emergency food systems as a means of acquiring food, and the power of providers to make sufficient food available through these systems and of potential recipients to access it. Theories of ‘care’ and ‘social protection’ are employed to explore the ways in which charitable providers are in practice taking responsibility for the duty to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food and how shifts in welfare policy are affecting need for this provision.


Author(s):  
Ana Rita Ferreira ◽  
Daniel Carolo ◽  
Mariana Trigo Pereira ◽  
Pedro Adão e Silva

This article discusses the ways in which the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic has embodied to the political choices made during the process of creating and defining a democratic welfare state and how the various constitutional principles are reflected in the architecture of the system and have gradually changed over the years. The authors argue that when Portugal transitioned to democracy, unlike other areas of the country’s social policies the social security system retained some of its earlier organising principles. Having said this, this resilience on the part of the Portuguese system’s Bismarckian template has not prevented social protection from expanding here in accordance with universal principles, and has given successive governments manoeuvring room in which to define programmatically distinct policies and implement differentiated reformist strategies. The paper concludes by arguing that while the Constitution has not placed an insurmountable limit on governments’ political action, it has served as a point of veto, namely by means of the way in which the Constitutional Court has defended the right to social protection, be it in the form of social insurance, be it in the imposition of certain social minima.


2021 ◽  
Vol specjalny (XXI) ◽  
pp. 707-716
Author(s):  
Justyna Czerniak-Swędzioł

Professional soldiers have their own social security system, separate from the general social insurance system, which provides social protection in the event of long service, total incapacity to serve and the death of the breadwinner (pension benefits). At the same time, a professional soldier can accumulate and receive two pensions from different systems, ie universal and reserve. However, the principle of accumulation of benefits based on the applicable provision is dedicated to a narrow group of entitled persons. The principle of non-cumulation is considered to be the basic and dominant one. It is an expression of the principle of risk solidarity in force in social insurance law and is not inconsistent with the constitutional principle of equality expressed in Art. 32 of the Polish Constitution. In the event of the overlapping of the right to several benefits specified in the Act, the pension authority is obliged to pay only one (higher) benefit, even if this right results from various acts, and the possibility of combining benefits must be clearly indicated in the provisions of law. Separation of the insurance and supply system allows each of these systems to fulfill separate obligations towards professional soldiers, not related to the general system. Maintaining the principle that for the same period of retirement pension insurance, two retirement benefits cannot be awarded simultaneously (Article 5 (2a) (2a) of the Pension Act). The exception to the principle of non-accumulation (ie the principle of collecting one benefit) in the case of a professional soldier remaining in service before January 2, 1999 is not determined by the date of admission to service, but the lack of the possibility to calculate the military pension taking into account the “civil” retirement age. The convergence of the right to benefits (from the general and military pension) with the parallel occurrence of these events is contrary to the constitutional principle of social justice. It is not socially just to deprive an insured person who has met the statutory requirements of the right to benefits solely on the basis of social solidarity. In such situations, a significant part of the retiree’s professional life is not reflected in the amount of received retirement benefits.


2021 ◽  
pp. 191-196
Author(s):  
Michael Obladen

Trisomy 21 originated with Homo sapiens, or even before, as it exists in other primates. However, in antiquity, Down’s syndrome was rare: mothers were younger, and children failed to reach adulthood. For centuries, trisomy 21 and hypothyreosis were confused. Scientific reports originated from asylums for the mentally retarded. In 1866, John Langdon Down at Earlswood published a description of symptoms in his ‘Ethnic classification of idiots’ and coined the term ‘Mongolian’. Jerôme Lejeune identified an additional chromosome 21 causing the disorder. Maternal age rose markedly for various reasons, as did the prevalence of trisomy 21. From 1968, high-risk pregnancies were screened and interrupted because of Down’s syndrome. Non-invasive techniques now enable all pregnancies to be screened to detect chromosomal anomalies early and precisely. The topic is hotly debated and consensus unlikely. Legislation will not halt scientific progress, but it should ensure that in the same society contradictory attitudes can be held and mutually respected: the right to accept a disabled infant and the right not to accept it.


Author(s):  
Alexandra L. Phelan

This chapter addresses the dynamic balance between human health and the environment, with a focus on the global health and human rights threat of climate change. International legal efforts to mitigate environmental damage and climate change—from the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the 2015 Paris Agreement—have been limited in addressing the threats posed to global health. Human rights will be necessary to examine efforts to mitigate and respond to these cataclysmic threats, including rising temperatures and extreme weather events, air pollution, infectious diseases, food, water and sanitation, and mental health. Facing this unprecedented threat, advocates can draw from past advances, including the use of litigation to protect human rights affected by the environment, the realization of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, and the implementation of human rights as a foundation of planetary health.


Author(s):  
Phelan Alexandra L

This chapter addresses the dynamic balance between human health and the environment, with a focus on the global health and human rights threat of climate change. International legal efforts to mitigate environmental damage and climate change—from the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the 2015 Paris Agreement—have been limited in addressing the threats posed to global health. Human rights will be necessary to examine efforts to mitigate and respond to these cataclysmic threats, including rising temperatures and extreme weather events, air pollution, infectious diseases, food, water and sanitation, and mental health. Facing this unprecedented threat, advocates can draw from past advances, including the use of litigation to protect human rights affected by the environment, the realization of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, and the implementation of human rights as a foundation of planetary health.


2021 ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
Xavier Prats Monné

A European social contract is possible—if the discussion shifts from who has the right to act to who can help. Education is a striking example of Europe’s paradox: the areas that interest its citizens most—education, health, social protection—are those where EU institutions have the least competence. Yet while the main policy responsibility and funding instruments are at national or regional level, the key global trends in education and the reforms they require call for a strong effort from both the EU and its member countries: an extraordinary expansion of the demand for higher education and new skills; a renewed interest in the interaction between technology, education, and society, driven by the advancement of data analysis and artificial intelligence; and a growing concern about the role of education in reducing inequality and social exclusion. Education has a great future—but it will not be education as we know it; the credibility of Europe’s social contract will rest on its capacity to build and communicate the case for change and to articulate a guiding vision for twenty-first-century learning.


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