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.

In response to a growing global awareness of human poverty and the increasing potential of human rights law as a tool that can be used by the poor to achieve their basic rights, the international body of law, policy and relevant standards on economic, social, and cultural rights has expanded markedly in recent years. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Legal Resource Guide provides, for the first time, a comprehensive, consolidated source of most major international agreements recognizing economic, social and cultural rights. Readers interested in workers' rights, trade union rights, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to housing, the right to food, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to culture will find this book a vital source of information on the exact legal sources, definitions, and enforcement possibilities associated with these rights. The guide contains key treaties, declarations, general comments, interpretive texts, and charters. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Legal Resource Guide is an indispensable reference work for all those working in the field of international human rights law. Lawyers, researchers, governmental civil servants, ministerial officials, NGO staff, United Nations and other international officials, aid agencies, community-based organizations, students, and others will find this consolidated source of materials on economic, social, and cultural rights a useful addition to any reference library. Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Legal Resource Guide is organized in an easy-to-use format and is accessible to both lawyers and nonlawyers. The inclusion of legal, policy, and explanatory standards on economic, social, and cultural rights will enable the reader to know not only the law on these rights but the actual meaning accorded these rights under the law.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights examined the implementation of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK. Domestic legislation protects many of the economic, social and cultural rights, with the Covenant itself having little impact in UK domestic law. The Committee believes that there is scope for incorporating further protection of rights in the UK, by enshrining some of the guarantees contained in the Covenant. Further, that for the Covenant rights to be effective, they should be part of a framework for government policy development, and that Government along with the Commission for Equality and Human Rights should develop ways of measuring the progress of these rights. The Committee also recommends, that explanatory notes to Bills, should include discussion of the Bills compatibility with Covenant rights, which is a way of enhancing the scrutiny of proposed Government legislation. Furthermore, the Committee recommends the introduction of an Equality Bill, to address the concerns of discrimination faced by ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities in employment, housing and education.

This book critically examines models of domestic, regional and international judicial protection of economic, cultural and social rights in Africa.

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.

Economic, social and cultural rights are finally coming of age. This book brings together all essential documents, materials, and case law relating to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - one of the most important human rights instruments in international law - and its Optional Protocol. This book presents extracts from primary materials alongside critical commentary and analysis, placing the documents in their wider context and situating economic, social, and cultural rights within the broader human rights framework. There is increasing interest internationally, regionally, and in domestic legal systems in the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Optional Protocol of 2008 allows for individual communications to be made to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights after its entry into force in 2013. At the regional level, socio-economic rights are well embedded in human rights systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas. At the national level, constitutions and courts have increasingly regarded socio-economic rights as justiciable, narrowing the traditional divide with civil and political rights. This book contextualises these developments in the context of the ICESCR. It provides detailed analysis of the ICESCR structured around its articles, drawing on national as well as international case law and materials, and containing all of the key primary materials in its extensive appendices. This book is indispensible for the judiciary, human rights practitioners, government legal advisers and agencies, national human rights institutions, international organisations, regional human rights bodies, NGOs and human rights activists, academics, and students alike.

Preface.

Congo, Republic of the.

Preface to the first edition

Human rights based budget analysis projects have emerged at a time when the United Nations has asserted the indivisibility of all human rights and attention is increasingly focused on the role of non-judicial bodies in promoting and protecting human rights. This book seeks to develop the human rights framework for such budget analyses, by exploring the international law obligations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in relation to budgetary processes. The book outlines international experiences and comparative practice in relation to economic and social rights budget analysis and budgeting. The book sets out an ICESCR-based methodology for analysing budget and resource allocations and focuses on the legal obligation imposed on state parties by article 2(1) of ICESCR to progressively realise economic and social rights to 'the maximum of available resources'. Taking Northern Ireland as a key case study, the book demonstrates and promotes the use of a ‘rights-based’ approach in budgetary decision-making. The book will be relevant to a global audience currently considering how to engage in the budget process from a human rights perspective. It will be of interest to students and researchers of international human rights law and public law, as well as economic and social rights advocacy and lobbying groups.