Decent Work, Human Rights, and the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals ("MDGs") have provided the global framework for international development and poverty elimination policy for almost a decade. This framework includes time-bound targets and indicators to monitor progress toward the Goals. Initially, full employment and decent work for all was not part of the MDG framework. In 2007, however, the UN General Assembly approved four new MDG targets, including the achievement of "full and productive employment and decent work for all." This article discusses this new MDG target and its indicators from social justice and human rights perspectives.

It argues that uniting the overlapping agendas of the international development, social justice and human rights communities would increase coherence in policy and programming and thereby enhance efforts toward achieving decent work for all. To unite these agendas, however, all three communities must broaden their perspectives to accommodate a notion of decent work that respects all human rights.