INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON

ECONOMICS, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL

RIGHTS (ICESCR)

SoIS, Colgis
UUM, Sintok

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 The Relationship between ICESCR
and ICCPR

• ICESCR are inter-related with ICCPR

• Because human rights and fundamental
freedoms are indivisible and interdependence
• Equal attention should be paid to the
implementation, promotion, and protection of
ICCPR and ICESCR

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 Traditional Rights Paradigm

Nation State Duty bearer

Obligation to respect, protect
and fulfill rights

Resident of State Rights’ holder/beneficiary

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Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Paradigm

International
Community Duty bearer
Obligation to respect, protect
and fulfill rights

Nation State Rights’ holder/beneficiary

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 The Duty Bearer The Rights’ Holder The Duty Bearer
The Rights’ Holders
The State The State The International
The People
community

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 International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (1966)

Article 2 on general obligations

States Parties and those in a position to assist
undertake to take steps, individually and through
international assistance and cooperation, especially
economic and technical, to the maximum of its
available resources,

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Steps of Implementing ICESCR

• To recognize self-determination, including the right to "freely

determine their political status", pursue their economic, social and
cultural goals.

• To establish the principle of "progressive realisation" of the ICESCR

by The State Parties
• Article 2 of the Covenant imposes a duty on all State Parties to
– Take steps... to the maximum of its available resources, with a
view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights
recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means,
including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.
– Some of the rights may be difficult in practice to achieve in a
short period of time, but requires them to act as best they can
within their means.
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 Core Rights of ICESCR

– Labor Rights
– Right to social security
– Right to family life
– Right to an adequate standard of living
– Right to health
– Right to free education
– Right to participation in cultural life

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Labor and Trade Union

• The Right to Form Trade Union

• The Right to Establish National Federation
• The Right to Join International Trade Union
Organization
• The Right to Strike

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Standard of Living

• Adequate Standard of Living for himself/herself

and families
– Adequate Food, clothing, housing
• The Right to be free from hunger, unhealthy,
etc
• The States Parties take appropriate steps to
the realization of this right

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11
12
The Fate of Syrian Family during the Civil
War….No food, No health, No Safety!

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 The Right to Health

General Comment 14 on the Right to Health

“For the avoidance of any doubt, the Committee

wishes to emphasize that it is particularly
incumbent on States parties and other actors in
a position to assist, to provide “international
assistance and cooperation, especially
economic and technical” which enable
developing countries to fulfil their core and other
obligations” – right to health obligations

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15
The Right to Health and global obligations

Obligations of international cooperation and assistance –

(global/ extraterritorial obligations) complementary to that
of national state. Primary obligation rests with state.

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Right to Health at the Global Level

Global or Extra-territorial Obligations

What is the value-added?
• “the notion of extra-territorial human rights obligations
opens up the possibility of addressing policy decisions
taken by dominant states that adversely affect people in
less powerful states.”

Koen de Feyter, Human Rights – Social Justice in the age

of the market, London, Zed Books, 2005 (p. 23)

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 The State Parties Obligations Related to Providing
Standard of Physical and mental Health

• Article 12, ICESCR

– Reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant mortality and for the
healthy development of the child;
– The improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial
hygiene;
– The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic,
occupational and other diseases;
– The creation of medical service and medical attention in the
event of sickness

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Why a human rights pathway?

“Human rights discourse gives us an inspirational

framework and a useful guide for analysis and action.
UN human rights mechanisms provide important future
avenues towards increasing accountability for health.”
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland Former WHO Director-
General

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Principles – the Right to Health

The Duty Bearer The Rights’ Holder The Duty Bearer

The Rights’ Holders
The State The State The International
The People
community

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 The State Parties Obligation to The Right
Everyone to Education
• Primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all;

• Secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational

secondary education

• Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of

capacity e education;

• Fundamental education shall be encouraged or intensified as far as possible

for those persons who have not received or completed the whole period of
their primary education;

• The development of a system of schools at all levels shall be actively

pursued, an adequate fellowship system shall be established, and the
material conditions of teaching staff shall be continuously improved.
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 Cultural Rights

• Right to participation in cultural life (Article

15 ICESCR)
– Right to science and culture
– Right to development
– Right to public participation
• Cultural Rights are often qualified as an
“underdeveloped category” of human rights
(Janusz Symonides, Human Rights: Concept
and Standards, p.175).

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Rohingya Refugee in Myanmar

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State Parties’ Levels of Obligation

• The Obligation to Respect

• The Obligation to Protect
• The Obligation to Facilitate
• The Obligation to Fulfill or To be The Provider

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List of Cultural Rights (Janusz Symonides)

• The Right to Cultural Identity

• The Right to Participate in Cultural Life
• The Right to Education
• The Right to Creativity and to Benefit from the Protection of the
Moral and Material Interest Resulting from any Scientific, Literary or
Artistic Production
• The Right to Information
• The Right to Benefit from Scientific Progress and Its Application
• The Right to Cultural Heritage
• The Right To International Cultural Cooperation

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