Thesaurus of Economic, Social & Cultural Rights: Terminology and Potential Violations (review)

Abstract

This Thesaurus is the first published result of an ambitious project on which the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Human Rights and Documentation Systems, International (HURIDOCS) have been collaborating since 1996. The project's goal is to produce a series of tools and resources that will help organizations and individuals to monitor violations of economic, social, and cultural human (ESC) rights. To understand the context for the Thesaurus, one should be aware that other products in the works include a Handbook on Economic, Social, and Cultural Human Rights, written for an audience of national NGOs, and a series of manuals that will examine in greater depth five of the rights included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 1 : work, food, housing, health, and education. There will also be a series of five commissioned papers that explains the nature of these same rights in more detail, identifies their "minimum core contents," and describes common violations. Finally, another set of five commissioned papers will examine the effects of globalization on the realization of ESC rights in five regions of the world. Some of these additional resources may be in print or available on the World Wide Web by the time this review appears.