aspects of rights related to work. This part of international human rights law is often neglected in human rights textbooks and teaching, and indeed is often omitted from the work done by national human rights institutes and by nongovernmental organizations concerned with human rights, as though it were a separate discipline that did not fall properly into the human rights field. This is a commonly held, but erroneous, misconception based on three factors, The first is the politically-driven division of human rights into civil and political rights (CP) on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights (ESC) on the other. This was founded in the ideological conflicts of the Cold War, and consolidated by the adoption of the two major—but separate— human rights Covenants in 1966. There were superficially credible reasons for the distinctions drawn between these so-called categories of rights, based in the emphasis given to one or other set by the ‘East’ and ‘West’ because each side privileged one category of rights over the other. The ‘West’ took the position that economic, social and cultural rights would flow from political freedoms, while the ‘East’—unwilling to accord civil and political liberties to their citizens—took the position that it was most important to ensure economic stability and wellbeing before venturing into the dangerous waters of democracy. The second, though related, reason is based in the Western notion of individual rights being the only ones that can properly be called human rights. Collective rights—which are characteristic of many ESC rights—cannot in this view properly be called human rights. This is still today the more or less official position of the United States, the United Kingdom and a few others in international discussions. Another aspect of this same question is the notion that ESC rights could not be achieved without economic development, while CP rights are accessible for every nation without financial cost—another flawed assumption, discussed in more detail below.