| 61st
Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
Agenda
Item 10: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Statement
of the NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
31 March
2005
Geneva, Switzerland
Delivered
on behalf of the NGO Coalition by the Australian Human Rights Council
(Speaker: Ben Lee)
Mr Chairperson, I am speaking for the Human Rights Council of Australia
on behalf of the NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant),
which is comprised of national, regional and international organisations
and individuals supporting the adoption of an Optional Protocol
to the Covenant.
In 2004 and
2005, members of our Coalition participated in the Open-Ended Working
group on this topic. We have been heartened by the significant developments
we witnessed at the second session. As delegates at the session
themselves affirmed, the momentum for an Optional Protocol to the
Covenant is building. The High Commissioner for Human Rights reflected
on this momentum in her opening statement when she articulated that
she very much hoped that agreement would soon be reached to enable
an Optional Protocol to the Covenant to enter into force.
The Coalition
welcomes the report of the second session of the Open-Ended Working
Group, which has been considered by this Commission. It is an accurate
reflection of the open and constructive debates which took place
between delegates attending the meeting, and represents the significant
increase in the level of support for drafting an Optional Protocol
to the Covenant, including for the first time the supportive position
of the African Group and the ongoing support of the Group of Latin
American and Caribbean states.
Mr Chairperson,
the mandate of the Working Group is to consider options for an Optional
Protocol. Let us, as the NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol,
be clear. To our mind, the option of no Optional Protocol is not
an option. It perpetuates a historic hierarchy of rights, wrought
in a different political age. It fosters an inequality of review
procedures within the human rights monitoring mechanisms. It ignores
the broad-ranging implementation of economic, social and cultural
rights in all regions of the world. It denies the growing, and global,
jurisprudence on economic, social and cultural rights, which has
derived in large part from the increasingly comprehensive domestic
mechanisms to address economic, social and cultural rights. And
it ignores the needs of our shared constituents, those who suffer
violations of their economic, social and cultural rights. Their
need for access to justice is the imperative which drives these
discussions and our participation in this process, both here in
Geneva and in our own work at the national level.
Mr. Chairperson,
in our view, it is equally unthinkable to provide for a complaints
mechanisms only for certain components of the economic, social and
cultural rights while excluding other components of the rights.
In the view of the NGO coalition, it is critical that all aspects
of economic, social and cultural rights be subject to the complaints
procedure under the optional protocol to the ICESCR, just as all
aspects of the rights in other treaties have been made subject to
complaints procedures. Like all human rights, economic, social and
cultural rights must be recognised in all of their dimensions, positive
and negative, including overlapping obligations to respect, protect
and fulfil, and all aspects of the rights must be subject to effective
remedies. Any attempt to divide economic, social and cultural rights
into ‘justiciable’ and ‘non-justiciable’
components would undermine the integrity and inter-dependence of
all human rights, thwart positive developments at the domestic and
regional levels recognising the justiciability of economic, social
and cultural rights and create unworkable distinctions as to admissibility
of complaints.
The NGO Coalition
is of the view that an Optional Protocol to the Covenant should
incorporate the following two elements as its broad framework. One,
an Optional Protocol to the Covenant should provide for individual
and collective communications. Two, it should incorporate an inquiries
mechanism, as per the Optional Protocol to the Covenant on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and procedures under
the Convention Against Torture.
As we began
to see at the recent Working Group, negotiations on the Optional
Protocol the Covenant will provide a forum to address, inter alia,
issues of:
- standing,
which should extend to NGOs;
- admissibility,
which should ensure that all rights contained in the Covenant
are susceptible to the provisions of the Optional Protocol;
- responses
to provisions in the Covenant on international cooperation;
- interim
measures and emergency procedures; and
- effective
remedies and follow-up mechanisms.
As the High
Commissioner noted, an Optional Protocol to the Covenant will bring
justice to victims of violations of their rights to housing, health,
culture, education, food, social security, work, and other rights
articulated under the Covenant and when their own national systems
of justice have failed them. No other mechanism at the international
level provides for the breadth of coverage on economic, social and
cultural rights issues.
An Optional
Protocol to the Covenant will give real meaning to economic, social
and cultural rights. It will implement the commitment made by governments
in the World Conference on Human Rights Vienna Declaration and Programme
of Action that that “all human rights are universal, indivisible
and interdependent and interrelated”.
Mr Chairman,
the NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol thanks you for the opportunity
to address the Commission, and looks forward to the adoption by
consensus of the report of the Open-Ended Working Group, and to
the work of the group’s third session.
Prepared by
the NGO Coalition for an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, comprised
of national, regional and international organisations and individuals
supporting the adoption of an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR. The
Ad Hoc Steering Committee of the Coalition comprises representatives
from IWRAW Asia-Pacific, COHRE, ICJ, FIAN and the Social Rights
Advocacy Centre (Canada).
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