Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

INTRODUCTION After the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’), which included a relatively full catalogue of human rights, the UN General Assembly instructed the Commission on Human Rights to commence the drafting of a single covenant on human rights. While the drafting of a treaty covering civil and political rights was completed in short time, disagreement over whether to include economic, social and cultural rights led the Economic and Social Council (‘ECOSOC’) to request guidance from the General Assembly. The General Assembly initially ordered the Commission to produce one covenant but later reversed its position due to mediocre drafting progress, further prompting from ECOSOC and opposition of some Western States to economic, social and cultural rights. In 1966, it approved the adoption of two Covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the ‘Covenant’ or ‘ICESCR’), the latter lacking a complaints mechanism. Two decades after this schism, the ‘renaissance’ of economic, social and cultural rights (‘ESC rights’) is partly attributable to the pioneering work of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘the Committee’). Established in 1987, the Committee has developed a ‘jurisprudence’ through its general comments and State-specific concluding observations. This work has been influential and catalytic in helping develop the conceptual framework of economic, social and cultural rights.