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ABSTRACT
Extreme inequalities in income, wealth and social outcomes are one of the greatest human rights challenges that we face today as they threaten individual and community health, national political and economic stability and global peace. This article considers the extent to which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted on September 25, 2016, and international human rights norms are adequate to address the challenges of these extreme inequalities. It focuses specifically on SDG 10, which aims to reduce inequalities within and among countries, and finds the targets inadequate to address many of the most pressing inequalities. It then examines international human rights law to discern whether human rights standards might inform the SDGs to alleviate some of the shortcomings of SDG 10. The article concludes that interpretations of international human rights to date also fall short in terms of addressing income, wealth and social inequalities. It therefore calls for research on the legal interpretation of the multiple equality provisions in the International Bill of Human Rights in a manner that would address the greatest human rights challenges of our time.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank two reviewers for their insightful comments, and Angela Duger for her research assistance for this article. I am also grateful to Shareen Hertel and Susan Randolph, Co-Directors of the Research Project on Economic and Social Rights at the University of Connecticut, for the opportunity to present an earlier draft of this article at their Spring 2016 Workshop, and to those in attendance who provided thoughtful comments on the draft.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on contributor
Gillian MacNaughton is an assistant professor at the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development and a Senior Fellow in the Center for Peace, Democracy and Development, both at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Notes
1 Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, ‘An Agenda for Equality’, Statement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the Summit for Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda (UN Headquarters, New York, 25 September 2015); Ignacio Saiz and Gaby Oré Aguilar, ‘Introducing the Debate on Economic Inequality: Can Human Rights Make a Difference?’ OpenDemocracy, October 27, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/ignacio-saiz-gaby-or-aguilar/introducing-debate-on-economic-inequality-can-human-ri; Philip Alston, ‘Extreme Inequality as the Antithesis of Human Rights’, October 27, 2016, https://opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/philip-alston/extreme-inequality-as-antithesis-of-human-rights.
2 Anthony B. Atkinson, Inequality, What Can Be Done? (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Thomas Picketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2013); Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012); Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (London: Allen Lane, 2009).
3 UNGA, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, UN Doc. A/Res/70/1 (2015).
4 Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.; see also Inga Winkler and Margaret Satterthwaite, ‘Leaving No One Behind? Persistent Discrimination against Marginalised Groups and the Imperative to Monitor Inequalities’, International Journal of Human Rights, this volume.
7 Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heintz, ‘How Inequality Threatens All Rights’, OpenDemocracy, October 29, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/radhika-balakrishnan-james-heintz/how-inequality-threatens-all-human-rights.
8 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, G.A. res. 2016 (XX), Annex, 20 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 14) at 47, UN Doc. A/6014 (1966), 660 U.N.T.S. 195, entered into force January 4, 1969; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, GA. Res 34/180, 34 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 46) at 193, UN Doc. A/34/46, entered into force September 3, 1981; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), G. A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 49, UN Doc. A/6316 (1966), 933 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force January 3, 1976; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), G.A. res 2200A (XXI), 21 UN GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, UN Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976.
9 ICCPR article 2; ICESCR article 2.
10 Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’; Philip Alston, Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/29/31, May 27, 2015, para. 6.
11 See Saiz and Oré Aguilar, ‘Introducing the Debate’; Alston, ‘Extreme Inequality’; Balakrishnan and Heintz, ‘How Inequality Threatens All Rights’; Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, ‘It’s About Values: Human Rights Norms and Tolerance for Inequality’, OpenDemocracy, December 22, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/sakiko-fukuda-parr/it-s-about-values-human-rights-norms-and-tolerance-for-inequalit.
12 See for example ‘Inequality: A New Challenge for Human Rights’, The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center For Human Rights and Justice, University of Texas at Austin, https://law.utexas.edu/humanrights/project-type/inequality-project/ (accessed July 12, 2017).
13 Gillian MacNaughton, ‘Untangling Equality and Nondiscrimination to Promote the Right to Health Care for All’, Health and Human Rights Journal 11, no. 2 (2009): 47–63, 51.
14 Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’.
15 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Statistics Division, Millennium Development Goals and Indicators, http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Host.aspx?Content=Indicators/OfficialList.htm.
16 UN DESA, Inequality Matters: Report of the World Social Situation 2013 (New York: United Nations, 2013), 25.
17 Ibid.
18 The World Bank, World Development Indicators 2016, 52, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/23969/9781464806834.pdf (in purchasing power parity).
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, ‘Top CEOs Make 300 Times More Than Typical Worker’, Issue Brief #399, Economic Policy Institute, June 21, 2015, 3.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 The Equality Trust, ‘The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK’, https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk (accessed November 26, 2016).
25 Credit Suisse Research Institute, Global Wealth Report 2016, 11, http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=AD783798-ED07-E8C2-4405996B5B02A32E (accessed July 12, 2017).
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., 30.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 11.
33 Ibid., 27.
34 Ibid., 9.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid., 10.
37 Ibid., 11.
38 Oxfam, An Economy for the 99% (Oxfam Briefing Paper, January 2017), https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf; Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’.
39 UNDP, Humanity Divided: Confronting Inequality in Developing Countries (New York: United Nations, 2013), 9.
40 UNDP, Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development (New York: United Nations 2015), 211.
41 Ibid., 208, 211.
42 UNDP, Human Development Report 2015, 227.
43 Ibid., 224, 227.
44 Save the Children, State of the World’s Mothers, https://www.savethechildren.net/state-worlds-mothers-infographics (accessed July 12, 2017).
45 Vidit Munshi, Gavin Yamey and Stéphane Verguet, ‘Trends in State-Level Child Mortality, Maternal Mortality, and Fertility Rates in India’, Health Affairs, 35, no. 10 (2016): 1759–63, 1761.
46 UNDP, Human Development Report 2015 , 241.
47 Munshi, Yamey and Verguet, ‘Trends in State-Level’, 1760.
48 UNDP, Human Development Report 2015 , 211.
49 Ibid., 208, 211.
50 Education Policy and Data Center, Nigeria Core USAID Education Profile (2012), 2, https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/Nigeria_coreusaid.pdf (accessed July 12, 2017).
51 Ibid., 5.
52 Balakrishnan and Heintz, ‘How Inequality Threatens All Rights’; Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’; Alston, ‘Extreme Inequality’.
53 UNESCO and the Institute for Development Studies, World Social Science Report 2016 – Challenging Inequalities: Pathways to a Just World (Summary) (Paris: UNESCO Publishing 2016), 7.
54 Ibid.
55 UN DESA, Inequality Matters, 29.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., 63.
59 World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality (Washington, DC: The World Bank 2016), 7; Thomas Pogge and Mitu Sengupta, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) As Drafted: Nice Idea, Poor Execution’, Washington International Law Journal 24, no. 3, 571–87, 582.
60 UN DESA, Inequality Matters, 67.
61 World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016, 69.
62 UNESCO, World Social Science Report, 9.
63 Wilkinson and Pickett, The Spirit Level, 135.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., 136.
66 Ibid., 81.
67 Ibid., 81–3.
68 Ibid., x.
69 Richard G. Wilkinson, The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Better (London: Routledge, 2005), 51.
70 Ibid., 221.
71 UN DESA, Inequality Matters, 72.
72 Wilkinson and Pickett, The Spirit Level, 174.
73 Ibid., 181.
74 Gillian MacNaughton, ‘Beyond a Minimum Threshold: The Right to Social Equality’, in The State of Economic and Social Rights: A Global Overview, ed. Lanse Minkler (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 271–305, 289.
75 The World Bank, World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development (Washington DC: The World Bank and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 108.
76 Ibid.
77 UN DESA, Inequality Matters, 70–1.
78 Ibid., 70.
79 The World Bank, World Development Report 2006, 108.
80 World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016, 73.
81 The World Bank, World Development Report 2006, 108.
82 Ibid.
83 World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016, 3.
84 Ibid., 70.
85 Ibid.; UN DESA, Inequality Matters, 22.
86 World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016, 70.
87 The World Bank, World Development Report 2006, 82-83; Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, ‘Building America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time’, Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 1 (2011): 9–12.
88 The World Bank, World Development Report 2006, 82–3.
89 Norton and Ariely, ‘Building a Better America’, 10; OECD, ‘Income Inequality Remains High in the Face of Weak Recovery’, Income Inequality Update (November 2016), http://www.oecd.org/social/OECD2016-Income-Inequality-Update.pdf. Among OECD countries, Mexico and Chile are more unequal than the United States. Sweden is listed among the more equal societies along with other northern European countries, the Czech Republic, The Slovak Republic and Austria. Ibid.
90 Norton and Ariely, ‘Building a Better America’, 10.
91 Ibid.
92 Dan Ariely, ‘Americans Want to Live in a Much More Equal Country (They Just Don’t Realize It)’, The Atlantic (online August 2, 2012).
93 UNESCO, World Social Science Report, 1.
94 See for example Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), G.A. res. 217A (III), UN Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948), article 1 (equal in dignity and rights), article 7 (equal before the law), article 16 (equal rights as to marriage), article 21 (equal access to public service); article 23 (equal pay for equal work).
95 Compare UNGA, Transforming Our World with United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics Division, Millennium Development Goals Indicators, http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Host.aspx?Content=Indicators/OfficialList.htm (accessed July 12, 2017).
96 Ibid.
97 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 14.
98 Katja Freistein and Bettina Mahlert, ‘The Potential for Tackling Inequality in the Sustainable Development Goals’, Third World Quarterly 37, no. 12 (2016): 2139–55, 2140.
99 Ibid., 2144.
100 Faiza Shaheen, ‘Inequality Within and Among Countries’, in International Norms, Normative Change, and The UN Sustainable Development Goals, ed. Noha Shawki (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 99–113, 100.
101 For example Pogge and Sengupta, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals’, 583.
102 Richard Wilkinson and Deborah Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality Within and Among Countries’, in Review of Targets for the Sustainable Development Goals: The Science Perspective, ed. Anne-Sophie Stevance (International Council for Science in partnership with the International Social Science Council, 2015), 51. These critiques are also valid for other SDGs and targets. See for example Diane Frey and Gillian MacNaughton, ‘A Human Rights Lens on Full Employment and Decent Work in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’, Journal of Workplace Rights 6, no. 2 (2016), 1–13.
103 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
104 Pogge and Sengupta, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals’, 583.
105 Ibid.
106 Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, India: Development and Participation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 36–7.
107 Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 52.
108 Michael W. Doyle and Joseph E. Stiglitz, ‘Eliminating Extreme Inequality: A Sustainable Development Goal, 2015–2030’, Ethics and International Affairs 28, no. 1 (Spring 2014), 10.
109 Alex Cobham and Andy Sumner, ‘On Inequality, Let’s Do the Palma (because the Gini is So Last Century)’, Oxfam Blog ‘From Poverty to Power’, March 19, 2013, https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/on-inequality-lets-do-the-palma-because-the-gini-is-so-last-century/; Alex Cobham, Luke Schlogl and Andy Sumner, ‘Inequality and the Tails: The Palma Proposition and the Ration Revisited’ (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Working Paper No. 143), http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2015/wp143_2015.pdf.
110 Doyle and Stiglitz, ‘Eliminating Extreme Inequality’.
111 Final Compilation of Amendments to Goals and Targets by Major Groups and Other Stakeholders including Citizen’s Responses to My World Priorities: To Inform the Thirteenth and Last Session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, July 14–18, 2014, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/4438mgscompilationowg13.pdf.
112 Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 52.
113 Pogge and Sengupta, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals’, 580–4; Alex Cobham, Lukas Schogl and Andy Sumner, ‘Top Incomes Drive Inequality – So Why Does the Inequality Target Ignore Them?, The Guardian (September 21, 2015), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/sep/21/top-incomes-drive-income-inequality-global-target.
114 Joint Statement by over 45 NGOs and Worker Organizations, OWG Inches Closer to Human Rights for All Post-2015, But Still a Long Road Ahead, April 30, 2014, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/8706HRsForAll.OWG11WP.may4.pdf.
115 Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 51.
116 Edward Anderson, ‘Equality as a Global Goal’, Ethics & International Affairs 30, no. 2 (2016): 189–200, 194.
117 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
118 Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators, UN Doc. E/CN.3/2016/2/Rev.1, Annex IV (March 2016), 13.
119 See further Winkler and Satterthwaite, ‘Leaving No One Behind?’.
120 Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group (March 2016). Notably, the same indicator is used to measure progress toward target 16.b ‘Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development’ (ibid., 22).
121 See further Winkler and Satterthwaite, ‘Leaving No One Behind?’.
122 Kate Donald, ‘Will Inequality Get Left Behind in the 2030 Agenda?’, in Spotlight on Sustainable Development, Report by the Reflection Group on the 203 Agenda for Sustainable Development, ed. Barbara Aams, Roberto Bissio, Chee Yoke Ling, Karen Judd, Jens Martens and Wolfgang Obenland, https://www.2030spotlight.org/en/published.
123 Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group, 13.
124 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
125 Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 52.
126 Donald, ‘Will Inequality Get Left Behind’, 84.
127 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
128 Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group, 13.
129 Ibid., 21.
130 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
131 Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group, 13.
132 Ibid., 13.
133 Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators, Compilation of Metadata for the Proposed Global Indicators for the Review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Metadata for Goal 10 (updated March 3, 2016), 9, http://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/metadata-compilation/Metadata-Goal-10.pdf.
134 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
135 Anderson, ‘Equality as a Global Goal’, 198.
136 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 27. Target 17.12 states: ‘Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions, including by ensuring that preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from least developed countries are transparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market access’.
137 Ibid., 21.
138 Ibid., 26.
139 Anderson, ‘Equality as a Global Goal’, 198.
140 Ibid.
141 UNGA, Transforming Our World, 21.
142 Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators, Compilation of Metadata, 14.
143 Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 52.
144 Ibid.
145 Letter to Dr Homi Kharas, executive secretary of the secretariat supporting the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, March 19, 2013, http://www.post2015hlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dr-Homi-Kharas.pdf.
146 Doyle and Stiglitz, ‘Eliminating Extreme Inequality’, 10.
147 Pogge and Sengupta, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals’, 585.
148 See Wilkinson and Rogers, ‘Goal 10 – Reduce Inequality’, 52.
149 Ibid.
150 Doyle and Stiglitz, ‘Eliminating Extreme Inequality’, 10.
151 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 3: The Nature of the State Parties Obligations, UN Doc. E/1991/23, annex III at 86 (1990), para 2.
152 UNGA, Transforming Our World, para. 10.
153 Zeid, ‘An Agenda for Equality’.
154 Saiz and Oré Aguilar, ‘Introducing the Debate’.
155 Alston, Annual Report 2015, para. 3.
156 Ibid., para. 26.
157 Ibid., para. 54.
158 Ibid., para. 48.
159 Ibid., para. 54–5.
160 See for example Saiz and Oré Aguilar, ‘Introducing the Debate’; Alston, ‘Extreme Inequality’; Balakrishnan and Heintz, ‘How Inequality Threatens All Rights’; Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, ‘It’s About Values’; Donald, ‘Will Inequality Get Left Behind’; MacNaughton, ‘Untangling Equality and Nondiscrimination’; MacNaughton, ‘Beyond a Minimum Threshold’; Radhika Balakrishnan, James Heintz and Diane Elson, Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2016); Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), ‘From Disparity to Dignity: Tackling Economic Inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals’ (CESR human rights policy brief, 2016), http://www.cesr.org/sites/default/files/disparity_to_dignity_SDG10.pdf.
161 See for example Balakrishnan, Heintz and Elson, Rethinking Economic Policy, 30–8.
162 CESR, ‘From Disparity to Dignity’, 2.
163 Fukuda-Parr, ‘It’s About Values’, 3.
164 MacNaughton, ‘Untangling Equality and Nondiscrimination’, 52.
165 Ibid., 56.
166 Alston, Annual Report 2015, para. 55.
167 Shaheen, ‘Inequality Within and Among Countries’, para. 6.42; Anderson, ‘Equality as a Global Goal’, 189.
168 Ibid.; See Report of the Inter-agency and Expert Group, 2. But see Winkler and Satterthwaite, ‘Leaving No One Behind?’, maintaining that the indicators address only gender, age and disability, leaving out ethnicity, race, language and religion.
169 UNGA, Transforming Our World, para. 4.
170 Ibid.
171 Report of the Inter-agency and Expert Group, 13.