The Legal Nature of the Rights Granted by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Abstract

What is the legal nature of the rights granted by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)? This question seems simple enough, and every lawyer interested in the international protection of human rights is likely to have come to ponder it at one time or another. Before the Second World War, the international protection of economic and social rights was mainly the concern of the ILO, with its own very specific techniques and procedures. Apart from that, the question of social rights had gained the attention only of some academics. After the War, economic and social rights were included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 22–29), though that is not a binding instrument. There is also, of course, the European Social Charter, concluded in 1961, and in force since 26 February 1965, which is a regional treaty. Since the entry into force of the ICESCR on 3 January 1976, however, there is now a binding and global instrument dealing with the protection of what are generally called “social rights” (in contradisctinction to “civil and political rights”).