Welfare State Reform and Social Rights

In all rich countries, though at different speeds, the Welfare State has been going through an important reform process since the mid-1990s. We have witnessed a gradual merger between social assistance and unemployment assistance, as the former was made increasingly conditional upon the beneficiary actively seeking work and as the levels and the duration of unemployment benefits were drastically lowered; a contractualisation of the relationship between job-seekers and public employment agencies, with a view to "responsibilising" both; and the imposition of a duty to accept "suitable" employment, with a generally broadened definition of what is suitable employment, based on the idea that the job-seeker should be "flexible" and encouraged to adapt to the exigencies of the employment market. This article assessses the contribution of human rights bodies to the discussion about the transformation of welfare. It makes three proposals explaining how the human rights response could be strengthened and made more relevant.