Jamie Burton Published: 6th November 2015 There are no enforceable economic , social or cultural rights in the UK. Although the UK has ratified ICESCR it has not been incorporated into domestic law and the ECHR is of course primarily concerned with civil and political rights. Therefore it is generally uncontroversial that there are no rights to state benefits or social security in the UK. The attempts that have been made to infer such rights under ECHR have largely failed. Nonetheless , there have still been a large number of challenges brought to various aspects of the benefits system. Mostly these have been on grounds derived from the common law , EU law , the public sector equality duty or Article 14 ECHR discrimination. As is clear from the summer 2015 budget and the Welfare Reform and Work Bill 2015/16 , the program of reform to the UK social security system is likely to remain a political reality for some time to come and doubtless the legal challenges will also continue. Files Articel 14: Discrimination in state benefit cases Author: Jamie Burton Publication date: November 6 2015 Find out more Social Security Salami Slicing: companion paper by Michael Spencer You might be interested in… Discrimination law for public lawyers/Public law for discrimination lawyers