FROM ENFORCEMENT TO INTEGRATION: INFUSING ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION-MAKING WITH HUMAN RIGHTS VALUES

Abstract

This article proposes an integration approach to realize human rights values within administrative agencies. Using social assistance as a factual context, it examines how rights enforcement has become the dominant mechanism for reforming government benefits programs. Rights enforcement is ineffective at achieving the values underlying human rights codes, however, even where enforcement occurs at administrative tribunals. Attention must therefore be directed towards efforts to infuse individual and institutional discretion with human rights values. Given their quasi-constitutional status, such values have a key role to play in shaping the design of administrative agencies and the everyday decisions of front-line workers.