Chronicle of an Announced Birth: The Coming into Life of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—The Missing Piece of the International Bill of Human Rights

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina de Albuquerque
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol

The Protection of Human Rights by the Organization of American States

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 889-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. Cabranes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
American States ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

On December 16, 1966, the General Assembly approved three agreements designed to establish a global system of enforceable treaty obligations with respect to fundamental human rights. These agreements are the second part of the “international bill of rights” proposed at the San Francisco Conference. Eighteen years separated the adoption of these agreements—the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—and the approval in 1948 of the first part of the projected United Nations program for the protection of human rights, the non-binding Universal declaration of Human Rights.

9 The Great Enterprise Today (2006)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pace John P
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Working Group ◽  
International Convention ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Right To Development ◽  
United Nations Declaration ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Phase

This chapter studies the arrival of the Human Rights Council. The idea of a Human Rights Council was raised in 1976, as the Great Enterprise entered a new phase. The documentation in 1976 on this issue is comprehensive, consisting of no less than five informative reports. In addition, the Commission on Human Rights had before it the analysis of the observations received from some Member States. They included an analysis of the deliberations at the Assembly that had taken place in November of 1975, which covered a range of topics, including ‘the possibility of transforming the Trusteeship Council into a Human Rights Council’. In 2005, the Secretary-General announced his plans to propose the establishment of a Human Rights Council to the Commission. A few months later, the World Summit decided on the establishment of a Human Rights Council. The Human Rights Council inaugurated its work with the adoption of two international human rights instruments, which had reached completion in the Commission on Human Rights: the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also extended the mandate of the Working Group formed under the Commission to elaborate an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and of the Commission’s Working Group on the Right to Development.

scholarly journals THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: A NEW INSTRUMENT TO ADDRESS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-302
Author(s):  
Christian Courtis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Potential Use

The article discusses the adoption of the new Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a means to obtain redress for violations against economic, social and cultural rights in the international sphere – including its potential use for the consideration of the violation of extraterritorial obligations.Keywords: Human rights. Social rights. Violations. Optinal protocol.

Armed Groups and Treaty Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Fortin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
African Union ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Convention Against Torture

Chapter 8 employs the theories identified in Chapter 7 to consider whether it is possible to argue that armed groups are bound by the major human rights treaties. The chapter conducts detailed analysis of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It also examines the main human rights treaties which it argues hold most textual potential to bind armed groups, namely the Convention against Torture, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.

Justiciability of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: Should There Be an International Complaints Mechanism to Adjudicate the Rights to Food, Water, Housing, and Health?

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Dennis ◽  
David P. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

Should all internationally recognized human rights—economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights—be subject to the same individual-complaints procedures? This issue is now before a newly convened working group of the UN Commission on Human Rights. At its first meeting, from February 23 to March 5,2004, the Working Group debated the feasibility of elaborating an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) that would provide for the adjudication of individual and group complaints against states under that Covenant. Participating states were in sharp disagreement over the viability of the proposal, however, and the session ended in disarray. Since the Commission has recommended renewal of the Working Group’s mandate for two years, the issue remains open.

scholarly journals Harnessing the Human Rights Reasonableness Principle for Access to Medicine

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Shamiso Zinzombe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Generic Medicine ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Access To Medicine ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Similar Principle ◽  
In Transit ◽  
First Time

The reasonableness principle has come to the fore in human rights law with the entry into force of a much anticipated Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. While the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, monitoring implementation of the treaty, has maintained a similar principle in documents such as its statements, this is the first time that the reasonableness principle has been formally enumerated in human rights treaty law. The manner in which pharmaceutical corporations exploit patents in the context of the human right entitlement to access medicine is an interesting area to examine using this principle. The application of patents to medicine is controversial and rightly challenged for creating a system of innovation that prioritises profits over people. This unconscionable system is one for which activists, scholars and commentators are correctly calling for a human rights based open system of innovation that ensures access to medicine for all in need. This article, however, explores strategies that could be used in the meantime. These strategies speak to some causes of this problem related to decisions to use intellectual property in certain contexts. For example, the seizure of generic medicine en route from India to Brazil whilst in transit in Rotterdam, the use of multiple patents through strategies known as 'evergreening', patent 'thicketing' or 'clustering' to thwart the entry of generic medicine, or restrictions on voluntary licences such as geographic restrictions that prevent supply of medicine to certain territories. At the same time, it is worthwhile noting that the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property contains provisions which could work with the reasonableness principle. Thus, this article argues, in addition to other principles advanced in the human rights community in this area, it is also possible to apply a reasonableness principle to the use of intellectual property in the area of medicine. It does so by using seizure of in-transit generic medicine as a case study with which to extrapolate the potential application of the reasonableness principle. This paper sets out an introduction, explains the practice of intercepting or seizing generic medicine in-transit, discusses the reasonableness principle and explores the reasonableness principle as a mechanism to hold pharmaceutical corporations to account in order to promote, rather than hinder access to medicine.

Completing the UN Complaint Mechanisms for Human Rights Violations Step by Step: Towards a Complaints Procedure Complementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wouter Vandenhole
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Independent Expert ◽  
Human Rights Treaties

With the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW in 2000, four of the six main UN human rights treaties are now complemented with an individual complaints procedure. The proposal to establish an individual complaints mechanism for economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) meets with considerable political opposition. Progress has been jeopardised by an ongoing discussion on the nature of ESCR, which are still very often considered as second-class human rights. It is submitted here that the two main issues of debate – justiciability and the nature of the obligations of States – have been sufficiently clarified in recent years in order to allow for individual complaints. Ongoing reluctance to establish an individual complaints procedure for ESCR can therefore no longer convincingly be based on legal motives. A new impetus to the debate on the establishment of an individual complaints procedure for ESCR was given in 2001, with the appointment of an independent expert, and in 2003, with the establishment of an open-ended working group. The suggested amendments to the draft for an Optional Protocol as prepared by the ESCR-Committee in 1996, may assist the working group in bringing the draft Optional Protocol in line with changed circumstances since 1996, with particular reference to the OP-CEDAW.

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