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The force of the claimability objection to the human right to subsistence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jesse Tomalty
Jesse Tomalty*
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, OxfordOX1 1NF, United Kingdom
*
*Email: jesse.tomalty@politics.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

The claimability objection rejects the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights because the duties thought to correlate with this right are undirected, and thus it is not claimable. This objection is open to two replies: One denies that claimability is an existence condition on rights. The second suggests that the human right to subsistence actually is claimable. I argue that although neither reply succeeds on the conventional interpretation of the human right to subsistence, an alternative ‘practical’ interpretation provides a viable approach to vindicating this right.

Keywords

Human rightssubsistencepovertyglobal justiceclaimability
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

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