Market Intervention and Human Rights

Today human rights are often described in terms of the rule of law, constitutionalism, civil liberties, constitutional rights, and fundamental rights. This paper aims to understand the responsibility of a government to intervene into markets to answer the calls for justice and sustainability. The requiresa theory of economic welfare connected to the faith in fundamental human rights. One such social theory of economic welfare is provided by Karl Polanyi who calls for government intervention into the market to compliment the market’s self-interest – something he calls a “double movement.” Amartya Sen also criticized one-sidedness understanding of economics contending that it violates the two roots of economics in both, engineering and ethics. This paper will show that government intervention into markets is not just acceptable according to a formalist economic theory, but also necessary as a preservation of fundamental human rights, and to protect justice and sustainability in economic and social advancement