The International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which after some twenty years of debates was adopted in the United Nation's (UN) General Assembly, opened for signature on December 16, 1966, and entered into force on January 3, 1976. The CESCR binds 148 state parties. The United States signed the CESCR on October 5, 1977, but it has not yet ratified the covenant and seems unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. The U.S. government has consistently been more reluctant to recognize economic and social rights, such as the right to health, education, and minimal standards of food, clothing, and shelter, than it has the civil and political rights recognized in the UN's International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, a distinction that was often pointed out by the Soviet Union before its collapse.

The rights set...