Realising the human right to a social minimum? : a comparative socio-legal study of EU Member States

Abstract

Europe is generally seen as a continent with well-developed welfare state systems and social protection buffers. Nevertheless, disadvantaged and marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by poverty and social exclusion. According to international human rights law, states need to adhere to the minimum core doctrine by realising minimum essential levels of rights without discrimination. My thesis conceptualises the minimum core doctrine as a substantive right to a social minimum. I define this right to a social minimum as non-discriminatory access to minimum essential levels of subsistence and argue that conceptualising the minimum core doctrine as a substantive right makes it more tangible, less abstract, and frankly, easier to realise. In order to answer the research question how EU Member States should realise the right to a social minimum, I compare the Concluding Observations of five UN human rights treaty bodies across all EU Member States in the period of 2009-2019. In three case studies, I address the particular challenges of realising the right to a social minimum for persons with disabilities, children, and Roma. I demonstrate that the European survey on income and living conditions (EU-SILC), which is the official instrument to measure poverty and social exclusion across the EU, is insufficient to satisfy the human rights requirements for disaggregated data. However, it is still a useful tool for cross-national comparisons. Besides doctrinal analysis, I engage in qualitative content analysis with the software MAXQDA. By integrating the human rights analysis with a statistical reading of EU-SILC data across the EU, I address the divide between human rights lawyers and social policy scholars. The final argument of my thesis is that in order to realise the right to a social minimum, EU Member States need to prioritise the collection of disaggregated data for persons with disabilities, children, and Roma.