scholarly journals The Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Hennie Strydom
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms

This contribution commences with a brief overview of the origin of economic, social and cultural rights and their eventual codification in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The main part then focuses, firstly, on the nature and scope of state obligations for the realization of Covenant rights and the enforcement mechanisms created under the Covenant and its Optional Protocol, and secondly, on the role of the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council. In the conclusion, three contemporary developments are highlighted which could open up new areas in which economic, social and cultural rights could find further application.

An International Relations Perspective on the Reform Needs of the Human Rights Council

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-80
Author(s):  
Wolfgang S. Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Structure And Dynamics ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Subject

Abstract: This article approaches the matter of institutional reform of the United Nations Human Rights Council from an international relations perspective. A well-known tension exists between State representatives acting for their governments in international organisations, but whose decisions are presented as UN policies. The latter should be guided primarily by the UN Charter and public international law. However, in reality, different worldviews and foreign policy considerations play a more significant role. In a comprehensive stock-take, the article looks at four major dimensions of the Council, starting with structure and dynamics and major trends, followed by its country and thematic activities, and the role of key actors. Council reform proposals from both States and civil society are explored. Whilst the intergovernmental body remains the most important authority responsible for the protection of human rights in the international sphere, it has also been the subject of considerable criticism. Although it has made considerable progress towards enlarging its coverage and taking on more challenging human rights crises, among some of its major weaknesses are the election of human rights-unfriendly countries into its ranks, the failure to apply stronger sanctions on large, politically influential countries in the South and North, and lack of influence on human rights crises and chronic human rights problems in certain countries. Whilst various reform proposals have emerged from States and NGOs, other more far reaching propositions are under sometimes difficult negotiations. In the mid- to long-term, the UN human rights machinery can only have a stronger and more lasting impact if support from national/local actors and coalitions in politics and society can be strengthened.

The UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, and the Protection of Cultural HeritageA Matter of Peace and Security, Human Rights, or Both?

2020 ◽  
pp. 202-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Hausler
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Heritage Protection ◽  
Human Rights Violation ◽  
Two Bodies

The UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council have increasingly addressed the destruction of cultural heritage in recent years, reflecting an expanded focus on cultural heritage protection across the UN system. This chapter examines the approaches of these two bodies to cultural heritage destruction and explores how their approaches have mutually reinforced each other but also reflected their different mandates: international peace and security and international human rights, respectively. This chapter starts with an analysis of some of the key Human Rights Council resolutions on the matter, as well as the work of its special procedures, in particular the Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights. It then looks at the resolutions of the Security Council both to assess the manner in which the Security Council has introduced cultural heritage destruction to the peace and security agenda and also to identify whether the Security Council has additionally addressed such destruction as a human rights violation. The chapter concludes with discussion of whether a human rights approach to cultural heritage destruction should be adopted more widely.

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.

Securing Compliance with International Humanitarian Law: The Promise and Limits of Contemporary Enforcement Mechanisms

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-220
Author(s):  
Ben Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
Conference Papers

AbstractThis report highlights several contributions to a recent ICRC sponsored IHL conference on compliance and enforcement. Conference papers addressed a range of contemporary issues including: whether the Human Rights Council has a mandate to examine alleged breaches of IHL; the complementarity debate (IHL/IHRL); the problem of human shields; UN Security Council practice with regard to violations of IHL; and whether IHL should be reformed to provide non-State organised armed groups with greater incentives to comply with IHL during non-international armed conflict.

Part VI Refugee Rights and Realities, Ch.54 The Right to Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dryden-Peterson Sarah ◽  
Mariën Hania
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Refugee Children ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
The Right ◽  
Recent Policy

This chapter examines the right to education of refugees. International human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Refugee Convention, provide a framework for the right to education for refugees. As a social right, and as reflected in the ICESCR, the right to education is to be progressively realized and requires positive action and allocation of funding. Like all human rights, it is dependent on action by government, the availability of public resources, and enforcement mechanisms. The devolution of responsibility for the education of refugees to States through recent policy further entrenches the role of the State in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling refugees’ right to education. The chapter then explores the intersection of global and national frameworks for the right to education for refugees and its realization in the form of access to schools. Despite the widely embraced global articulation of the right to education for all refugee children, the realization of the right to education is highly variable, being largely dependent upon their State of asylum.

The Law and Politics of International Cultural Rights: E. Stamatopoulou, Cultural Rights in International Law; F. Francioni and M. Scheinin (eds.), Cultural Human Rights

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-501
Author(s):  
Patrick Macklem
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractTwo recent books place international law at the centre of inquiries into the nature of cultural rights. The first, Cultural Rights in International Law: Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Beyond, by Elsa Stamatopoulou, explores "the concept of cultural rights by reviewing international and national legal instruments, international practice, and especially the role of UN bodies and entities in the implementation of these rights". The second, Cultural Human Rights, is a collection of essays edited by Francesco Francioni and Martin Scheinin. Wide-ranging in scope, Cultural Human Rights includes contributions that explore the relationship between cultural rights and the state, the relationship between cultural rights and other human rights, the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, normative justifications of human rights in general and minority rights in particular, the law and politics of cultural identity and collective memory, and various forms of cultural protection in a variety of regional and international institutional contexts. Both demonstrate that understanding cultural rights in international law requires a multi-faceted approach, one that pays close attention to the historical, textual and institutional dimensions of cultural rights. They reveal, too, that international legal commitments to sovereignty and human rights are more relevant to moral and political accounts of the significance of cultural rights than they might otherwise appear.

scholarly journals Enhancing Enforcement of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Using Indicators: A Focus on the Right to Education in the ICESCR

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sital Kalantry ◽  
Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Treaty Monitoring ◽  
State Compliance ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Ashgate Publishing ◽  
The Right

Nearly fifteen years ago, Audrey R. Chapman emphasized the importance of ascertaining violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as a means to enhance its enforcement. Today, the violations approach is even more salient given the recent adoption of the ICESCR’s Optional Protocol, a powerful tool to hold States parties accountable for violations.Indicators are essential tools for assessing violations of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) because they are often the best way to measure progressive realization. Proposed guidelines on using indicators give guidance on the content of States parties reports to treaty monitoring bodies, but none creates a framework to assess violations of a specific right in a particular treaty.This article fills this void by providing a framework to assess State compliance that integrates indicators into the project of ascertaining specific violations of economic, social and cultural rights under the ICESCR. The methodology that we propose calls for: 1) analyzing the specific language of the treaty that pertains to the right in question; 2) defining the concept and scope of the right; 3) identifying appropriate indicators that correlate with State obligations; 4) setting benchmarks to measure progressive realization; and 5) clearly identifying violations of the right in question.We illustrate our approach by focusing on the right to education in the ICESCR. In addition to assessing right to education violations, this methodology can be employed to develop frameworks for ascertaining violations of other ESCRs as well.Published: Enhancing Enforcement of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Using Indicators: A Focus on the Right to Education in the ICESCR, 32 Human Rights Quarterly 255 (2010) (a peer-reviewed journal) (with Jocelyn Getgen and Steve Koh) and republished in “Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,” edited by Manisuli Ssenyonjo, Ashgate Publishing.

Provision of Remedies for Violation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Comparative Study of the United Nations, Inter-American and African Human Rights Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Roman Girma Teshome
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Regional Monitoring ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Receive

The effectiveness of human rights adjudicative procedures partly, if not most importantly, hinges upon the adequacy of the remedies they grant and the implementation of those remedies. This assertion also holds water with regard to the international and regional monitoring bodies established to receive individual complaints related to economic, social and cultural rights (hereinafter ‘ESC rights’ or ‘socio-economic rights’). Remedies can serve two major functions: they are meant, first, to rectify the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage sustained by the particular victim, and second, to resolve systematic problems existing in the state machinery in order to ensure the non-repetition of the act. Hence, the role of remedies is not confined to correcting the past but also shaping the future by providing reforming measures a state has to undertake. The adequacy of remedies awarded by international and regional human rights bodies is also assessed based on these two benchmarks. The present article examines these issues in relation to individual complaint procedures that deal with the violation of ESC rights, with particular reference to the case laws of the three jurisdictions selected for this work, i.e. the United Nations, Inter-American and African Human Rights Systems.

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