The topic under study is relevant due to several points: firstly, at the beginning of the XXI century, human rights receive a new understanding: they are not merely subjective rights, they imply the legal guarantees that an individual is protected from encroachments on the part of governmental authorities, as well as other individuals; secondly, the thesis according to which social rights are “secondary” as against the socalled classical (personal and political) rights, should be re-considered, since they require active behavior on the part of the State and it is difficult to protect them in court.

The purpose of the article is to explore the specifics of social human rights through the features ensuing from the content of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, and to justify their significance in the human rights system. They should be understood primarily in the context of international law in this area. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights in its decisions explicitly states that the division of rights into personal, political, social or economic is conditional. In point of fact, human rights are a single system.

During the study, the author drew conclusions about the essence of social human rights. Adjustments are needed to the widespread position according to which civil and political rights require “negative” obligations of the State, and socio-economic rights – “positive” ones.

In modern conditions, this approach is being rethought in many aspects. Firstly, a number of social rights (e.g. freedom of labor, choice of occupation, prohibition of forced labor, right to professional associations, etc.) are, in fact, organic segments of fundamental values such as freedom and equality, which underlie the entire human rights system. Secondly, social rights, like other blocks of human rights, require the implementation of positive obligations of the State, which are based on the resources available to the State. Thirdly, only a few States (e.g. Hungary) have significantly limited the possibility of court protection of social rights at the level of the constitutional principle.