Expropriation Finally, it is noteworthy that the state may often simply take
property as long as it provides fair compensation for it through the mechanism of
expropriation. This means that it may be easy to overcome the right to property if
what the state wants is a particular thing (a strategically valuable piece of land, for
instance), but it will be hard for the state to gain an economic advantage because
expropriation means that the state will have to pay a fair price for what is being
expropriated.
12.6.4 Political Rights
The other half of the bourgeois rights is formed by political rights. Generally, these
should include the right to vote in free elections and to be elected into office.
There is a strong degree of overlap between political rights and freedom rights
because the freedoms of conscience, speech, and assembly have critical political
dimensions, and usually the importance given to these rights by courts is heightened
when they are exercised in a political context.
Limitation to Nationals It is generally accepted that the political rights of being
able to vote and to be elected to office can be limited to only nationals.
One could see political rights as an exception to the rule that human rights accrue to human
beings purely because they are humans. To have political rights one may need a special
legal status, such as having a particular nationality or being resident in a particular country.
Even then, this should be seen in the light of the presuppositions that every person is a
citizen of a country, and that statelessness is an anomaly. In reality, according to the United
Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (2009) there are some 12 million stateless
persons in the world.12.6.5 Socioeconomic Rights
Socioeconomic rights consist of a wide set of provisions that, fundamentally, aim at
addressing the problem of poverty. The most notable socioeconomic rights include
the right to an adequate standard of living, food, water, access to health services,
education, housing, social security, and work.
Judicial Protection For most of these rights, it is understood that the state must
provide the good for those who are unable to take care of themselves. As this task
was seen as essentially an issue of economic organization and not fit for judicial
decision, most of these socioeconomic rights were originally not protected judi-
cially. This has led many to argue that they are not really rights, but merely political
objectives dressed in the language of rights, because legal rights could not exist
without judicial protection.
Nowadays, judicial protection of socioeconomic rights is becoming increasingly
common. In connection with this, it has been emphasized that socioeconomic rights
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