Human rights economics

This article proposes a theoretical framework that systematically integrates human rights and economic analysis, addressing gaps in previous attempts linking theory and policy. Rather than developing a new theoretical approach, we work within a standard social planner setting in which a social welfare function embeds both fiscal constraints and rights-based valuations, ensuring Pareto-efficient outcomes while guaranteeing minimum rights. Conceptually, we link principles, policy instruments, and outcomes, highlighting shared structures across disciplines and enabling policy design that balances efficiency, equity, and transparency. Empirically, a case study of universal social protection strategies in South Africa illustrates how economic, human rights, and integrated approaches produce different priorities: targeted basic income maximizes fiscal efficiency, the universal transfer maximizes equality and rights, and the integrated perspective favors the expansion of the existing system as the second-most rights-consistent and most cost efficient option. This fully integrated framework demonstrates that human rights economics is not a slogan, nor merely the economics of human rights or rights within economics, but a true integration of both—practically applicable, context-sensitive, and offering a pathway to fiscally sustainable, socially inclusive, and administratively feasible policies.