Remarks at the Human Rights Council side event and launch of 'The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Commentary, Cases, and Materials’ on 26 March 2014
Welcome - We are delighted to be associated with the launch of this important book today. The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is an ESC rights advocacy NGO that works with national NGOs to bring ESC rights violations to the UN human rights mechanisms and seeks to influence human rights norms and standard-setting processes.
I am very pleased to speak today on the launch of this text on ESC rights authored by my compatriots, David, Ben and Jacqueline. It is a great achievement and an important advance for ESC rights scholarship and advocacy.
In my brief comments I would like to emphasise the importance of this text from the perspective of NGOs. NGOs and practitioners have played a very important and significant role in shaping the interpretation of rights in the Covenant. They do this by bringing attention to violations, identifying gaps in protection, working with States on implementation, disseminating rights information, litigating rights and perhaps most importantly, ensuring that the lived experience of rights holders, for whom the Covenant ultimately exists, reaches the Committee and the policy-makers at the national and international level. This ensures that the norms emanating from Geneva are informed and shaped by the perspectives and experiences of local and marginalised communities living in poverty.
First from a practical perspective, this book will be a very useful practical tool for NGOs and practitioners. It is fantastic to have the drafting history drawn together in one place and also the work of the Special Procedures mandate holders, regional human rights mechanisms and soft law principles. The timing is perfect for the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR and this book will be a vital tool for NGOs assisting with complaints or providing information in relation to the inquiry procedure.
I was also pleased to see that whilst the book acknowledges the debates about the status, justiciability and progressive realization of ESC rights, it very much asserts that these matters are now settled and that the discussion can move on to refinement of the jurisprudence and strengthening of the mechanisms, institutions and procedures for implementation and enforcement. Again, this will assist the work of NGOs and practitioners advocating for the ratification of the ICESCR or the Optional Protocol and engaging with States in relation to implementation and enforcement.
I would like to mention one issue that this text identifies as an emerging issue that is likely to shape ESC rights jurisprudence in the future – the issue of non-State actors and the question of the extra-territorial reach of the Covenant.
As an ESC rights NGO, one of the biggest issues we have seen in ESC rights in recent years is that of ‘land grabbing’. This phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors to make way for land-intensive development, mining or agro-industrial projects has swept through much of the developing world with devastating effects. Frequently it involves transnational corporations and inter-governmental organisations and often in the context of weak or conflict-affected States. Commonly, small-scale land holders in rural areas are evicted from their lands, often without consultation or compensation and in clear breaches of the rights to food, housing, water and other rights.
In this context, the extra-territorial application of the Covenant and the accountability of non-State actors are receiving more and more scrutiny. We’ve seen the adoption of the Maastricht Principles on Extra-Territorial Obligations in 2011 by leading international human rights experts and in 2012 the Human Rights Committee’s affirmation of extra-territorial obligations of States under the ICCPR in relation to business enterprises domiciled within a States’ territory but operating overseas. This was in the Committee’s Concluding Observations on Germany in the context of a German company operating a coffee plantation in Uganda which was implicated in the violent forced eviction of 2,000 villagers and the destruction of their homes and property.
Just recently the ICESCR Committee published Concluding Observations on Norway which urged it to ensure that investments in foreign companies operating in third countries made by the Norway Government pension fund ‘are subject to a comprehensive human rights impact assessment’ and to adopt measures to prevent human rights contraventions abroad by corporations which are domiciled in Norway. In relation to Austria the Committee called upon the State to adopt a human rights-based approach to its policies on official development assistance and on agriculture and trade, through human rights impact assessments, including ensuring that there is an accessible complaint mechanism for victims in receiving countries.
We think these are very interesting and positive developments and I hope that by the time of the second edition of this text we will have further established jurisprudence concerning these issues and perhaps even a whole chapter on extra-territorial obligations.
In conclusion, we know that elements of skepticism and relativism with respect to ESC rights remain in the minds of some States and particularly outside the ‘Geneva circle’, so we must continue to strongly articulate the case, so well put in this book, for equality and indivisibility of rights. A book of this quality, comprehensive nature and weight, is a significant contribution to solidifying the position of ESC rights in international law. I congratulate the authors and wish them great success in its wide distribution.
Lucy McKernan, UN Liaison – Geneva
Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights