Social Economic And Cultural Rights

Recent years have seen a remarkable expansion in the scale and importance of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights), culminating in the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in December 2008. The Protocol gives individuals and groups the ability to bring complaints about rights violations before the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Against this background, this book focuses on the question of how fundamental socio-economic human rights enshrined in international law are defined, interpreted, understood, and implemented. It assesses how effective efforts to realize ESC rights have been and investigates the contemporary challenges obstructing their protection. It sets out the impact of the global financial crisis and austerity measures, the human rights responsibilities of corporations, and trends in the justiciability of those rights at the national and international level. The interrelationship between ESC rights and other legal regimes such as trade and investment law, environmental law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law is also thoroughly examined. After an introduction by the editors the book contains seventeen chapters looking at the main questions which shape the progressive realization of ESC rights and their monitoring mechanisms. The authors of the chapters, both scholars and practitioners, adopt interdisciplinary approaches that move beyond traditional analyses of ESC rights. In doing so, they clarify and illuminate multiple aspects of the law by bringing together the different aspects of ESC rights, restating the challenges they face, and assessing the progress that has been made in expanding their adoption.

B. The Example of Belgium

The protection of economic, social and cultural rights is vital for everyone, no matter where they live. This volume sets out some of the important legal issues about these rights, including who has obligations, when they apply and how they are relevant to contemporary concerns, such as trade and democracy.

"One purpose of this book is to respond to this shift: to look beyond the more abstract and ideological discussions of the nature of socio-economic rights in order to engage empirically with how such rights have manifested in international practice". -- INTRODUCTION.

Since the first edition (published in 2009), there have been several important treaty developments, including the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) on individual communications, and significant developments in the case law on economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. The second edition addresses these developments and explores ESC rights from foundational issues to substantive rights and systems of protection. It has been fully updated to include new material and up-to-date coverage of the case law of human rights bodies and national courts on ESC rights. In addition to the rights to health, education and work covered in the first edition, the second edition analyses new developments, such as the rights to adequate food, water and sanitation, adequate housing, social security and cultural rights. It also considers several contemporary issues including the extraterritorial human rights obligations of states in the area of economic, social and cultural rights; non-state actors; relationship of the ICESCR to other areas of international law; the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR; regional protection of ESC rights; more examples of the domestic protection of ESC rights; the protection of ESC rights of vulnerable groups; contemporary challenges to ESC rights, including poverty, corruption, armed conflicts and terrorism. It concludes by exploring the possible establishment of a World Court of Human Rights.

This title offers a selection of those major contributions which have shaped debate in the field of economic, social and cultural rights. The broad range of discussion includes: the nature of economic, social and cultural rights and the ability of courts to protect them; the effectiveness of non-judicial protective mechanisms at both the universal and the domestic level; ways of measuring whether states do enough to 'progressively realize' these rights; the impact of trade and investment liberalization, and of economic globalization generally, on the fulfilment of such rights; and the role of economic, social and cultural rights in development.

The first edition of this text was a textbook on internationally recognized economic, social and cultural rights. While focusing on this category of rights, it also analyzed their relationships to other human rights, civil and political in particular. This revised edition updates the information.

This exciting Research Handbook combines practitioner and academic perspectives to provide a comprehensive, cutting edge analysis of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), as well as the connection between ESCR and other rights. Offering an authoritative analysis of standards and jurisprudence, it argues for an expansive and inclusive approach to ESCR as human rights.