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Courts and the Legal Enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by Christian Courtis International Commission of Jurists Nov 2009 The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has consistently recognized and advocated that economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) should be taken as seriously as civil and political rights. ESC rights have been part of the language of international human rights since at least the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. Yet, compared to civil and political rights, there has been considerably less attention placed on the need to develop the content of ESC rights and protection mechanisms to enforce them. These gaps in the international human rights system, this report will argue, came about for political and not for legal reasons. To a great extent, the cause of these gaps was the prominence accorded by Western countries to civil and political rights, in the context of the cold war divide. As a consequence, the notion of the justiciability of ESC rights has been neglected and largely ignored. The term “justiciability” means that people who claim to be victims of violations of these rights are able to file a complaint before an independent and impartial body, to request adequate remedies if a violation has been found to have occurred or to be likely to occur, and to have any remedy enforced. Bridging the gap between the justiciability of civil and political rights and that of ESC rights is key if both sets of rights are to be considered on an equal footing. This report will demonstrate that: ECS rights can be adjudicated; adjudication is desirable, and adjudication is already put into practice, to varying degrees, in many courts throughout the world. The report analyzes and counters some of the traditional objections to the justiciability of ESC rights. Some of these objections have been debated in the academic field. They also inform the position of States in various fora, including the present debate in the United Nations (UN) about the adoption of an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Optional Protocol to the ICESCR). This will establish a complaints procedure enabling these rights to be adjudicated by an international committee of experts. These objections also have consequences at the domestic level, as they inhibit the use of litigation where ESC rights have been violated and thus leave the promotion and protection of these rights almost exclusively to political, rather than judicial, bodies. This report refers to a wide variety of case law, showing how courts and judges around the world have adjudicated ESC rights, despite the alleged impediments to this. The case law highlighted in this report has been selected to represent a wide variety of ESC rights, including labour-related rights, the right to health, the right to housing, the right to education, the right to food and cultural rights. By examining a broad range of rights this report aims to show that the blanket assumption that ESC rights in general are not justiciable is false, and that numerous examples can be shown to contradict that assumption, regardless of the particular right at stake; and represent different regions in the world: cases from different high level domestic courts, regional human rights courts, and international monitoring bodies competent to review individual, group or collective petitions. Visit the related web page |
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International Media forum calls for concrete action on murders of journalists by UN Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization Nov 2009 Broadcasters attending the United Nations-backed fourth World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF 4) have called for sustained and concrete global action to address the murder of journalists in peacetime and in war. “Most journalists are killed not in war zones but in their own countries as they try to shine the light of the truth into the darkest recesses of their societies,” they said in a declaration adopted unanimously at the end of a two-day meeting in Mexico City. More journalists have been killed in Mexico this year than in any other country in the Western hemisphere, many of them for reporting on drug trafficking and related corruption. According to the International Press Institute (IPI), seven media professionals have been murdered in Mexico this year, the most recent being a journalist whose body was found earlier this month, as well as a radio presenter killed last month. The murders were strongly condemned by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is tasked with defending press freedom, and which called on the relevant authorities to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice. The declaration adopted at the Forum put the onus on governments, which it stated “are primarily responsible for the safety of all their citizens, including those in the news media. They have a responsibility to protect those citizens, pursue their killers and ensure freedom of expression.” During the Forum, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka voiced the UN"s concern for the safety of journalists worldwide, while stressing the need to ensure freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. “Your continued vigilance in this area – and the safeguarding of this human right – is essential to the future and expansion of an information-based society,” he stated. Visit the related web page |
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