Essay 10: How Do Human Rights Frameworks View Targeting?

Targeting within Universal Social Protection | 67

support for state action for redistribution and constructs of deservingness or reciprocity; different numbers and coalitions of political parties; and different details of electoral and budget processes.

Essay 10: How Do Human Rights Frameworks View Targeting?

Human rights are a widely accepted lens through which to view the instruments and outcomes of social policy. Most countries have signed the several international human rights treaties that reference social and economic rights. Moreover, all United Nations agencies have committed to mainstreaming human rights throughout the United Nations System.

In contrast to the economic lens that analyzes social protection in terms of investments, costs, and constraints, the human rights lens takes as a starting point that countries have voluntarily taken on obligations to provide for economic, social, and cultural rights and must now honor that pledge via social protection, among other actions (ILO 2021a, 2021b; Sepúlveda 2016, 2018; Sepúlveda and Nyst 2012; UNRISD 2013). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that the realization of the right to social security implies that states should take measures to establish social protection systems under domestic law and ensure their sustainability, that benefits are adequate in amount and duration, and that the level of benefits and the form in which they are provided are in compliance with the principles of human dignity and nondiscrimination. In complying with the right to social security, states must ensure that social protection is equally available to all individuals and in this respect direct their attention to ensuring universal coverage; reasonable, proportionate, and transparent eligibility criteria; affordability and physical accessibility by beneficiaries; and participation in and information about the provision of benefits (Sepúlveda and Nyst 2012, 19).

In principle, human rights standards are not compromised by the use of targeted schemes as a form of prioritization of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. However, in accordance with human rights standards, the methods must comply with the principle of nondiscrimination, which not only requires that all eligibility criteria must be objective, reasonable, and transparent, but also entails an obligation to prioritize the poorest of the poor and avoid stigmatizing beneficiaries. Targeted protection must be implemented with the intention of progressively providing universal coverage (Sepúlveda and Nyst 2012, 38). Targeting is admissible within a human rights perspective and may even be a needed tactic to focus “first on the especially disadvantaged and marginalized individuals and groups” (UNRISD 2013). But the issue does not stop with the decision to target—it