Measuring and monitoring social rights in a neoliberal age: between the United Nations’ rhetoric and states’ practice

The article aims to describe how the measurement and monitoring of human rights have been changed and weakened by the neoliberal resistance to social rights. In so doing, the study describes the political and ideological context which stimulated the broad conception of human rights included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It then focuses on the ideological turn which occurred over the 1970s from welfare democracy to neoliberal democracy and the neoliberal approach to human rights. Based on a neo-Gramscian approach, the study considers political and ideological reasons as key in explaining both the rise and fall of social rights and the changes in their measurement. As a case in point, the article analyses the work of the UN in measuring and monitoring human rights. In spite of the use by the UN committees of indicators and guidelines aimed at measuring and monitoring the progressive realization of all human rights, results show that the reluctance of many states to implement social and economic rights makes UN efforts ineffective. Both states’ reluctance and instruments’ ineffectiveness can be ascribed to the neoliberal delegitimization of social rights, which is likely to persist in spite of the recent economic crisis