It is sometimes suggested that societal change—large-scale improvement of working conditions, for instance—cannot be triggered or advanced by human rights law and judicial decisions. Politics are the way to achieve progress. The concern voiced is that judges are conservative, and hence not open to claims of social justice. Most importantly, it is said, even if they are receptive to such questions, a judicial decision only does justice to the individual applicant; it does not affect others found in a similar position or society as a whole. The new section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 entitled ‘Slavery, Servitude and Forced or Compulsory Labour’ is a useful reminder that this scepticism might be overstated. Courts and legislatures can work in tandem to establish and promote human rights principles, and with the support of groups of civil society, they can take positive steps in addressing gross injustices that affect the most vulnerable among us: abusive working conditions produced by a market economy. Human rights can ‘ennoble politics’ in the words of Robin West, serving as moral, legal and political principles towards which government aspires and against which it is assessed (Robin West, ‘Ennobling Politics’, in Jefferson Powell and James Boyle White (eds), Law and Democracy in the Empire of Force, University of Michigan Press, 2009, p. 58).
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