Reference no: EM132875730

Since the 1970s and 1980s many democratically elected governments and officials at both state and national levels in the United States have resisted, even rejected, calls to advance the realization of economic and social rights in the U.S. Should those of us outside of the United States accept this outcome as a reasonable cultural variance in understandings of human rights or should we condemn it as a violation of human rights, no matter what significant proportions of contemporary American voters might think?

Supplementary questions you might like to consider include: Should it matter that, while the United States has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights? Should it matter that the United States used to be more embracing of economic and social rights in the past, especially in the 1940s? Should states and their societies not remain free to change their minds about some or all human rights? Should the fact that the United States is one of the richest countries in the world affect our thinking about these questions?