Abstract
Abstract The decade of austerity policies resulting from the 2008 economic crisis significantly impeded the realisation of economic, social and cultural (esc) rights worldwide, especially for non-nationals who became targets of populist nationalist ideologies. The Coronavirus disease (covid-19) pandemic and its subsequent recession have heightened existing levels of inequalities, putting non-nationals’ access to health, housing, food, water and work under unprecedented strains. It is thus, crucial to analyse the extent to which un human rights treaties recognise non-nationals’ esc rights, in order to assess their ability to offer protection in this context. This article sheds light on the ambiguities of key un human rights treaties in this regard. It then analyses the attempts of relevant un treaty bodies to circumvent such issues; and finally suggests legal paths allowing un treaty bodies to further assert their protection of non-nationals’ esc rights during the covid-19 pandemic.
Highlights
As the world was slowly rising from the ashes of the 2008 economic crisis, following a decade of austerity policies that marginalised the most vulnerable groups of society, the covid-19 pandemic plunged it in the largest global via free accessrecession in modern history and cruelly heightened pre-existing inequalities.[1]
International human rights law fails to fully deliver on its universal promises when it comes to non-nationals’ esc rights. This is evidenced by the allowance of ‘differential treatments based on citizenships’ in relevant un human rights treaties, a concept first introduced by Article 1(2) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.[22]
This section explores what legal reasoning the cescr and the cmw may wish to demonstrate when faced with restrictive treaty provisions, in order to provide more sustainable legal solutions in the midst of the covid-19 crisis. It suggests that these un treaty bodies continue to protect extensively non- nationals’ esc rights, but by explicitly declaring differential treatments based on citizenship unlawful, and by relying on rules of treaty interpretation as well as on the recommendations of the Fragmentation Report
Summary
As the world was slowly rising from the ashes of the 2008 economic crisis, following a decade of austerity policies that marginalised the most vulnerable groups of society, the covid-19 pandemic plunged it in the largest global. It begins by examining the text of relevant treaties on esc rights of non-nationals It reveals that despite their inherently universal scope, un human rights treaties allow States to make differential treatments based on citizenship, including in two treaties key to the protection of non-nationals’ esc rights – the icescr, adopted in 1966; and the icmw, adopted in 1990. International human rights law fails to fully deliver on its universal promises when it comes to non-nationals’ esc rights This is evidenced by the allowance of ‘differential treatments based on citizenships’ in relevant un human rights treaties, a concept first introduced by Article 1(2) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.[22] This could jeopardise the best attempts of international human rights law if used in times of crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic. A/59/18, para 1: ‘Article 1, paragraph 2 provides for the possibility of differentiating between citizens and non-citizens.’
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