Equality rights have the potential to play an important role in realizing social rights, as well as in preventing and eliminating poverty. All governments have undertaken legal obligations - both international and domestic - to protect and promote the rights to equality and nondiscrimination. Yet, our societies are generally characterized by growing economic and social inequalities that adversely impact on many dimensions of people's lives, including health, life expectancy, personal security and political participation, implicating a myriad of human rights. This thesis examines the relationship between equality and social rights in the International Bill of Human Rights. It argues that minimum threshold approaches that focus on basic capabilities or core obligations are insufficient to fully realize social rights and eliminate multi-dimensional poverty. Because inequality prevents full enjoyment of social rights, as well as other human rights, invoking equality rights is a logical step toward realizing these rights. Considerable scholarship and jurisprudence addresses status-based inequalities, however, it generally fails to address economic status. Moreover, there is little discussion of the right-based equality in the context of social rights. Drawing on the drafting history and the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two International Covenants, as well as the work of the United Nations human rights bodies, scholarly commentary and domestic law, the thesis proposes that the International Bill of Human Rights should be reinterpreted to encompass the right to nondiscrimination on the basis of economic status as well as the right to social equality. Examining specific examples of unequal health care and education systems, it argues that both status-based and rights- based equality are necessary complements to social rights in the holistic framework of the International Bill of Human Rights guaranteed under article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.