PHM-Exch> Enforcing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: The Hope and Challenge of the Optional Protocol

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: OP Coalition op-coalition at escr-net.org




*What: “Enforcing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: The Hope and
Challenge of the Optional Protocol.”*

*When: Wednesday September 23, 2009, 5:00-7:00 PM*

*Where: Furman Hall, 212 (245 Sullivan street, NYU School of Law)*

* *

RSVP to ryank at exchange.law.nyu.edu<mailto:ryank at exchange.law.nyu.edu<ryank at exchange.law.nyu.edu%3cmailto:ryank at exchange.law.nyu.edu>
>

Event to be followed by a brief reception.

 *About the event:*

On September 24th, 2009, the *Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights *will be opened for
signature at a ceremony at UN headquarters in New York. Once operational,
this new international mechanism will provide victims of economic, social
and cultural rights violations who are not able to get an effective remedy
in their domestic legal system with tangible legal options for redress. In
doing so, it will correct a historic imbalance in human rights protection,
which has long marginalized economic, social and cultural rights.

 On the eve of this historic occasion, *CHRGJ and the NGO Coalition for an
OP-ICESCR* will host a discussion among three of the international human
rights experts who were pivotal in moving the Optional Protocol forward.
Please join us as CHRGJ’s faculty chair, Philip Alston, engages Catarina de
Albuquerque and Bruce Porter in a conversation about the evolution of the
Optional Protocol, its possible impacts, and the implementation challenges
it is likely to face.

 *Background on the Optional Protocol:*

Countless people around the world suffer violations of their economic,
social and cultural rights, including violations of their rights to adequate
housing, food, water and sanitation, health, work and education.
Discrimination in accessing public services such as health, education or
food distribution systems, working without any labor protections, and forced
evictions are only a few examples of the abuses faced by many people. Access
to justice is a right of all victims but in many parts of the world,
individuals are unable to hold governments, companies, and others
accountable for violating their rights. In many countries, most of the
economic, social and cultural rights are not recognized or enforceable by
law, leaving people with little hope of an effective remedy. Existing
remedies may also be ineffective or inadequately enforced.

 The United Nations has created a new international mechanism through the
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/A-RES-63-117.pdf to address
these shortcomings. The Optional Protocol aims to enable those whose
economic, social and cultural rights are violated—and who are denied a
remedy in their countries—to seek justice at the international level. It
also stands to influence decisions by judicial bodies at the national and
regional levels and create more opportunities for people to advocate for the
enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights within their own
countries.

 On September 24th, 2009, the Optional Protocol will be opened for signature
and ratification at a ceremony at UN headquarters in New York. It will not
come into force until ten states have ratified it.  Victims of violations of
ESC rights can only utilize the procedure after their state has ratified the
Optional Protocol.

 *How the Optional Protocol works:*

  *   States Parties to the Covenant joining the Optional Protocol recognize
the competence of the UN Committee on ESCR to receive and consider
communications from individuals or groups of individuals alleging violations
of the economic, social and cultural rights recognized in the Covenant on
ESCR.

 *   The Optional Protocol provides for the possibility of interim measures
by providing that the Committee may transmit to the State Party concerned
for its urgent consideration a request that the State Party take the
necessary steps to avoid possible irreparable damage to the victims of the
alleged violations.

 *   The Optional Protocol also creates an inquiry procedure, setting out
that if the Committee receives reliable information indicating grave or
systematic violations of the Covenant, the Committee shall invite that State
Party to cooperate in the examination of the information and to this end to
submit observations with regard to the information concerned. The inquiry
may include a visit to the territory of the State Party concerned.

 *   The Optional Protocol requires that States take all appropriate
measures to ensure that individuals under its jurisdiction are not subjected
to any form of ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of
communicating with the Committee pursuant to the Optional Protocol.

 *About the Panelists:*

 *Philip Alston* is the Faculty Director and Chair of the Center for Human
Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law, where he also serves as John
Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law. He is currently the Special Adviser to the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals,
and UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
>From 1991 to 1998 Philip was Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social &
Cultural Rights.

* **Catarina de Albuquerque* is a Portuguese lawyer, currently working as a
senior legal adviser at the Office for Documentation and Comparative Law (an
independent institution under the Portuguese Prosecutor General’s Office)
working in the area of human rights. She is an Invited Professor at the
Universities of Lisbon and Coimbra in her country. For more than ten years
she has represented her country in international negotiations and
conferences in the area of human rights at the UN, Council of Europe and
European Union.

>From 2004-08 she was the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on an
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights. In September 2008, she was appointed Independent Expert on
the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking
water and sanitation by the Human Rights Council.

 *Bruce Porter* is a human rights consultant, researcher, and well-known
advocate for the rights of poor people in Canada and internationally.  He is
the Director of the Social Rights Advocacy Centre and the Co-ordinator of
the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI), for which he has
co-ordinated 11 interventions at the Supreme Court of Canada. He is also a
member of the Steering Committee of the NGO Coalition for an Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, which led the campaign for a complaints procedure under the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by
the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 2008.

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