A/HRC/53/39 Social and Cultural Rights has highlighted individual rights violations while also drawing attention to the systemic discrimination and stigmatization of those who live in poverty.46 26. Regional human rights mechanisms have also advanced normative framings of the rights to be free from poverty and from inequalities. Significant contributions from regional bodies include: the adoption of an integrated concept of “economic, social, cultural and environmental rights” and the “right to a life with dignity”, the definition of discrimination based on poverty and vulnerable socioeconomic status as a violation of the right to equal protection by the law, the determination of direct violations of socioeconomic rights,47 the right to protection from (the risk of) poverty and social exclusion, the recognition of discriminatory working conditions and poverty arising from gender segregation in the labour market,48 and mechanisms for the justiciability of all economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights of women to food security, a healthy environment and sustainable development.49 27. Through their interpretation of human rights as indivisible and interdependent, human rights mechanisms have developed enlarged understandings of poverty and inequalities as abuses of multiple human rights and as forms of structural violence that undermine human dignity.50 Right to equality and non-discrimination 28. Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which their rights and freedoms can be fully realized. The human right to equal protection before and under the law entails positive obligations for duty bearers to reduce socioeconomic inequalities at the level of individual right holders as well as within and between countries.51 29. All of the core multilateral human rights treaties and most national constitutions guarantee the fundamental right of everyone to equality and non-discrimination. This is a principle that also permeates the interpretation and implementation of all human rights. The right to equality and non-discrimination includes the right not to experience any kind of distinction on prohibited grounds, including sex, gender, socioeconomic condition, or other status. 52 Human rights law recognizes that discrimination, including intersectional and multiple forms of discrimination, is both a cause and a consequence of poverty and inequalities.53 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 GE.23-06173 López Albán v. Spain (E/C.12/66/D/37/2018), para. 10.1. See, for example, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on Poverty and Human Rights in the Americas (2017); Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Business and Human Rights: Inter-American Standards (2019); Inter-American Court of Human Rights case law, especially in 2017–2022; and ECLAC, Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (2018). See Council of Europe, European Social Charter (revised) (1996), art. 30; Aoife Nolan, Protecting the Child from Poverty: the Role of Rights in the Council of Europe (2019); and Council of Europe, “UWE decisions: factsheet” (2019). African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; and Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003), arts. 15, 18 and 19. Views expressed during consultations. See also Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 36 (2019); A/77/157; A/HRC/35/29; A/HRC/44/51; A/77/136; and A/HRC/50/28. Gillian MacNaughton, “Is economic inequality a violation of human rights?”, in Research Handbook on Human Rights and Poverty, Martha F. Davis, Morten Kjaerum and Amanda Lyons, eds. (Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2021). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 2; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 2 (2); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 2 (1); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, arts. 1 and 2; Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 20 (2009); and Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, general comment No. 6 (2018), para. 11. A/HRC/21/11. 9