The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

96 Human Rights, Values and Choice
"to take steps ... to the maximum of its available
resources with a view to achieving progressively the
full realisation of the rights recognised in the present
Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly
the adopting of legislative measures."
The United Kingdom, as a developed country, is not
permitted to argue that regard may be had to the
national economy in determining the extent to which
economic rights must be guaranteed. For example, it
cannot argue that because there is an economic downturn
benefits ought to be reduced. All economists and
Treasury civil servants ought to be continuously alerted
to the United Kingdom's obligations. They need to be
educated about the UN Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, the European Social Charter of the
Council of Europe and the EEC's Social Charter. Even
more important is the issue of practical involvement and
seeing the impact of policy on the ground. Treasury
officials need to be part-trained in and seconded from
time to time to the major spending departments. They
ought regularly to visit some of the inner city areas and
run-down parts of the country, and if at all possible, be
required to work there for periods. A parallel would be
Foreign Office officials' constant contact with international
human rights bodies, personnel and issues: in the
event Foreign Office personnel are the most flexible and
sympathetic British civil servants on human rights
issues. Admittedly, at the end of the day such contacts
may not persuade Treasury officials to advise Governments
more sympathetically. They will have to overcome
traditions inherited from Gladstonian days which dominate
public fiscal and economic policy decision-making.
It would, nonetheless, be wrong to see Treasury policies
as being underpinned by a consistent laissez-faire philosophy
and conception of justice. Piece-meal pragmatism
is the Treasury's approach. Even if Treasury fiscal and