Social rights and the Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals and social rights have become intertwined in seeking to address poverty, diseases, inequalities and illiteracy.The SDGs have captured the attention of many actors, and their goal and target setting is a powerful development tool.Goals are persuasive, tangible and easy to communicate.By incorporating human rights elements, the realization of human rights may benefit from these dynamics.However, many targets fail to capture human rights guarantees comprehensively, in particular with regard to structural factors.The commitment to ‘leaving no one behind’ and reducing inequalities is central to the SDGs, yet we find significant shortcomings in the targets and measures used for implementing and monitoring these commitments.Another central gap of the SDGs relates to accountability, which is vague, voluntary and piecemeal.We conclude that the SDGs have significant potential to promote social rights, but it can only come to fruition if accountability mechanisms are strengthened.