Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Chapter 1 Introduction Gillian MacNaughton, Diane F. Frey and Catherine Porter I. Introduction Economic inequalities are among the greatest human rights challenges the world faces today. Over the past four decades of neoliberal policy dominance, economic inequalities have risen drastically in the vast majority of countries in the world (Alvaredo et al. 2018, 9). Over the same period, international human rights have risen to the become the primary ethical language and legal framework for justice. This Upendra Baxi labels the "Age of Human Rights" (2012, 1). For the first 30 years after adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, the human rights agenda encompassed the ideal of equality, which coincided with the growing welfare state and the decolonization and "modernization" of low- and middle-income countries (Marshall 1950; Moyn 2018; Dehm 2019). Since the 1980s, however, the hegemonic rise of neoliberal ideology and policy has resulted in growing and now extreme economic inequalities (Harvey 2005). This trend is now widely acknowledged by scholars, policymakers and activists"-- Provided by publisher.