Committee on Economic and Social Rights
According to Article 16 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is assigned the task of monitoring the realisation of its rights. Nine years after the entry into force of the covenant ECOSOC created a Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) that is a recreation of other treaty monitoring bodies. It consists of 18 independent experts. The CESCR is, contrary to other treaty-based bodies, still under the authority of the ECOSOC.
- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
Documentation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - Current Composition of the CESCR
Sessions
The CESCR convenes in Geneva twice a year for three weeks respectively. Its task is to review the periodically handed in Country Reports. The report is due two years after entry into force of the covenant and all five years thereafter.
General Comments
Based on the Country Reports the committee works out General Comments that specify the content and interpretation of the rights in the covenant. Until today (effective December 2010) the committee has released 21 such General Comments.
- General Comments
List of all General Comments on the Website of the CESCR
Individual Complaint Process
On 10 December 2008 the Optional Protocol was adopted. It provides for an individual complaint process for the enforcement of the rights in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. To date three countries have ratified the protocol and 35 countries have signed it (effective 21 December 2010, current count). It entered into force three months after ten states signed it.
- Text of the Optional Protocol (pdf, 9 p.)
Update: 19.08.2011
