Human rights and economics are not often spoken about in the same breath. Yet increasingly, human rights actors are calling for a shift towards a rights-based or human-rights economy. One that puts the economy truly at the service of communities contending with extreme social and economic inequality, climate catastrophe and corporate abuses.



The economies we live in structure our daily experiences and represent systems which can profoundly affect our ability to enjoy our rights to decent work, adequate healthcare, political participation, freedom from violence and more. This book systematizes academic and practitioners’ analyses and experiences, drawing from different epistemologies, literatures and case studies, to flesh out what a rights-based economy would look like, and the tools and actions – economic, legal, environmental and social – needed to get there.