European Social Charter Research Articles

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

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”).

"The European Committee of Social Rights as a Monitoring Body in the System of the European Social Charter"

The aim of this article is to present the European Committee of Social Rights as a moni-toring treaty body in the system of the European Social Charter. The author pays par-ticular attention to the mechanism of collective complaints, which was introduced to the Charter’s supervisory system on the basis of the 1995 Additional Protocol. In the author’s opinion, on the basis of the competence of the European Committee of Social Rights to hear collective complaints, it is arguable that this important treaty body in the system of the European Social Charter performs the function of a quasi-judicial organ in the monitoring process, which distinguishes it from other treaty bodies in the field of the international protection of human rights

The European Social Charter

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Council of Europe

The second part of the tenth session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe was held from October 10 to 17, 1958. The Assembly first discussed the supplementary report of the Committee of Ministers. M. Fatin Zorlu (Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs and present Chairman of the Committee of Ministers), presenting the report, recalled that two of the Council's most important achievements during the period covered were the setting up of the Cultural Fund and the fulfilment of the requirements for the setting up of the European Court of Human Rights. He also reviewed several topics worthy of particular attention, such as strengthening the Assembly's relations with national parliaments, nuclear and thermonuclear tests, and the European Social Charter. Concerning the development of Africa, which was treated in the report, the Assembly adopted an order instructing its Economic Committee to present detailed proposals regarding an investment statute, a guarantee and financial assistance fund, and the expansion of technical assistance by the European countries.