Right to rest & leisure

The adjusting to rest together with leisure is a economic, social and cultural right to adequate time away from clear and other societal responsibilities. this is the linked to the right to pull in and historical movements for legal limitations on workings hours. Today, the right to rest and leisure is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in many regional texts such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Criticism

The right to rest and leisure, like many economic, social, and cultural rights ESCR, has often been considered less important or essential than civil and political rights. Critiques of economic, social, and cultural rights such as Maurice Cranston and Aryeh Neier, or William Talbott's Which Rights Should be Universal, often argue that ESCR are unnecessary for human dignity, are less essential than civil and political rights, are too expensive and impractical, and that some constituencies of humans are undeserving of ESCR.

However, human rights scholars are increasingly embracing the concept of indivisibility and acknowledging that all human rights are fundamental. Defenders of the right to rest and leisure claim that this is the of fundamental importance to well-being once basic security has been assured, and that leisure is "not an idle destruction of time or mere absence from work, but, rather, necessary for a life of dignity".

The right to rest and leisure is an emerging human right, and debates around its importance and implementability are likely to be ongoing.