Geneva Updates
Our strategic presence in Geneva sets us apart as the sole NGO exclusively committed to economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights. This permits us to play a pivotal role in promoting and protecting these rights globally.
World Bank and other International Financial Institutions must uphold human rights in all activities they support
Joint Statement to the UN Human Rights Council: The World Bank and other International Financial Institutions must uphold human rights in all activities they support
The decisions, policies and projects promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs) have significant and often far-reaching impacts on human rights. While the impacts of these institutions can be positive - for example, contributing to poverty reduction - too often the impact is negative, with poor and marginalised individuals and communities suffering the most negative impacts. This is because these institutions frequently invest in industries, such as energy and resource extraction and projects, such as large-scale infrastructure development, associated with environmental damage and human rights abuses, like forced evictions. Also the projects that they support are frequently carried out in countries that may face significant challenges in ensuring the effective protection of human rights.
The undersigned organizations urge the UN Human Rights Council to increase its focus on the human rights impact of IFIs, including multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank.
While the obligation for the protection of human rights lies with the state, IFIs and their member states also have responsibilities to ensure that activities they support do not cause, or contribute to, human rights abuses by putting in place adequate safeguards. Many IFIs regard human rights as a political issue for states, and refuse to accept that they have, at a minimum, a responsibility to ensure respect for human rights in the activities they support. This is despite the fact that many IFIs are established and controlled by states, which have legal obligations under international and regional (and, in many cases, national) law to respect, protect and fulfill human rights.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has consistently stated that the obligations of states that are parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) extend to state action as part of inter-governmental organizations, including international financial institutions. In fact under the UN Charter and other instruments such as the ICESCR, states have the obligation to act individually and jointly to respect and defend human rights, including through international cooperation and assistance.
IFIs are large and powerful organizations, and the harm that can result from their refusal to meet their human rights responsibilities can be significant. Support provided without taking into account or requiring adequate human rights protections can legitimise and foster violations by states and abuses by non-state actors. This is an issue that the UN Human Rights Council must not continue to ignore.
All IFIs should implement human rights due diligence measures, including human rights impact assessments and human rights safeguard policies, which are consistent with international human rights laws and standards. Due diligence should inform not only project design, but also project implementation and evaluation. At the same time, IFIs and the activities they support should be carefully monitored to assess their ongoing impact on human rights, as well as the presence of effective procedures for ensuring accountability for human rights violations.
The impact of IFIs on human rights is a matter of global concern. In June 2012, during the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, twenty-one special procedures mandateholders stressed the need to ensure a unified accountability mechanism at the UN to monitor progress in achieving the sustainable development goals from a human rights viewpoint. Subsequently, in April 2013, four special procedures mandate-holders asked the World Bank to adopt human rights standards within the review of its Environmental and Social Safeguard Policies. Most recently, in June 2013, the Vienna+20 Conference on Human Rights called upon the UN and its stakeholders to address the responsibility of international intergovernmental organizations engaged in human rights violations.
Consequently, we are now urging the Human Rights Council to take concerted and expeditious action to elaborate and reinforce the human rights responsibilities of IFIs. While the role of IFIs has been addressed, to a limited degree, in international documents such as the Millennium Declaration, the Declaration on the Right to Development and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, greater focus and clarity is required to ensure that IFIs respect and protect human rights in their operations and are held accountable when they fail to do so.
Important work, which can contribute to clarifying the human rights responsibilities of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, has already been completed. For instance, the 2011 UN International Law Commission’s “Draft Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations” confirms that intergovernmental organizations, such as IFIs, are subjects of international law, and as such they have international law obligations that they must comply with. The Draft Articles also point out the international responsibility of both the organizations and the member states concerned.
In addition, the 2012 “Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” articulate the human rights obligations of states when acting jointly through an intergovernmental organization, as in the case of IFIs. These Principles have been endorsed by many international law experts, including current and former members of UN human rights treaty bodies, regional human rights bodies, and former and current special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council.
It is important that the Human Rights Council’s authority be brought to bear on these issues. The current global discourse around the post-2015 development goals offers an important opportunity to ensure that global governance and sustainable development increasingly incorporate a human rights law perspective. Post-2015 development goals must also take into account the human rights responsibilities of IFIs given their significant impact on development and potential for addressing poverty concerns. Accordingly, we urge that a panel discussion on this issue be held at a future session of the Council. The focus of the panel should be the connection between IFIs activities and their responsibly to ensure that human rights are respected and protected, and the options available to states and to the Human Rights Council to address violations. The objective would be to facilitate constructive dialogue on these issues.
Moving Beyond Cold War Visions and Endtime Prophecies: Claiming All Human Rights for All (Once and For All)
The following is a response from the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to an ongoing debate, which began HERE and HERE, on the content of human rights and the efficacy of the human rights framework and human rights advocacy for achieving social justice.
Moving Beyond Cold War Visions and Endtime Prophecies: Claiming All Human Rights for All (Once and For All)
By Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The articles ‘Misunderstanding our mission,’ (by Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch) and ‘Human rights: past their sell-by date,’ (by Stephen Hopgood) unfortunately mischaracterize and misunderstand both the nature and the power of the modern human rights movement. Both articles, while taking very different views of the human rights movement, seem to align perfectly with respect to putting forward views about human rights which are outdated and which perpetuate myths about human rights, myths which have been discredited within the international community for decades now.
The article by Aryeh Neier equates the whole of the human rights framework with civil and political rights, setting forth a “series of limits on the exercise of [State] power” vis-à-vis, for example, freedom of expression, personal liberty and privacy. He goes on to say that social justice advocacy, focuses on “distribution, or redistribution of wealth and resources;” a mission which may get at the roots of poverty but which he sees as falling outside of the scope of human rights.
We now have an overwhelming body of evidence that refutes this archaic and culturally biased notion of human rights, evidenced by successful legal enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights at the international, regional and national levels and such rights increasingly given Constitutional protection.
To be more specific, Neier’s outdated notion of human rights has at least two problems with it. First, it draws an artificial line and pits civil and political rights (rights like freedom of expression, the right to life, and the right to a fair trial) against economic, social and cultural rights (rights like the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to adequate housing, and the right to water). In Aryeh Neier’s view, one is either a human rights advocate, or a social justice advocate, but not both. Second, it perpetuates the myth that civil and political rights are only about negative obligations (obligations which require the State to refrain from action, say, torture), while economic, social and cultural rights have only positive obligations (obligating the State to take action, say, to provide housing). In reality, both sets of rights entail both negative an positive obligations. For instance, the right to a fair trial would be meaningless without corresponding State expenditure to make the justice system functional and effective, and the right to water would be meaningless if States were allowed to cut off a community's water supply.
At times like this it’s important to recall that it was over 60 years ago now that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, enshrining civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights as a comprehensive whole and side-by-side. 20 years ago, through the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the international community reaffirmed that “All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.” And, just last month, at Vienna +20, representatives of the global community once again reiterated “the importance of affording the same standard of protection to economic, social and cultural rights and to civil and political rights.”
In reality, the interconnection and interdependence of all human rights is readily apparent. For example, one cannot effectively realize the right to participate in government without also effectively realizing the right to food or the right to education. Similarly, the right to adequate housing is compromised if the right to equality before the law is not ensured. One set of rights cannot be protected at the expense or ignorance of the others. The fact that close to one billion persons live without inadequate housing, that over one billion persons lack access to clean water, that over 840 million persons are chronically hungry, and that there are more than 215 million child laborers throughout the world illustrates the human rights impact of economic, social, and cultural rights violations. These are human rights issues and no human right can be seen as superfluous or unnecessary.
Stephen Hopgood, in his essay, correctly critiques these kinds of ideas as alienating and culturally biased. But, he gets it wrong when he says that we live at the endtimes for universal human rights. In fact, we are no where near the end.
As human rights advocates know, with human rights come obligations, and when those rights and obligations are violated, the victims are due remedies and the perpetrators should be held accountable. This basic equation is part of the power of human rights and is one of the key strengths of the human rights framework as a means to achieve social justice. While economic, social and cultural rights are enshrined in the most foundational human rights documents, this antiquated notion that such rights are not really rights apparently is still alive and well for some. In fact, in apparent defiance of the principles of interdependence and universality, some detractors continue to propagate the myth that economic, social and cultural rights are merely aspirational and are somehow not legally enforceable – in other words, not justiciable.
But a closer look at the reality shatters that myth. As mentioned above, economic, social and cultural rights have been not only successfully adjudicated in domestic courts in countries in all parts of the world, they are part of many national Constitutions. They are addressed as a matter of course in all the major regional human rights tribunals. And UN judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms such as the Human Rights Committee – which monitors the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – have taken on issues such as water and housing because the concept of ‘interdependent and interrelated’ is not just theoretical – there is no meaningful right to life without access to clean water, and there is no meaningful right to freedom from cruel and degrading treatment if one is forcibly evicted from their home. The Human Rights Committee is also clear that civil and political rights also entail positive obligations, meaning that countries must not just refrain from certain actions, but must undertake certain actions to achieve certain results. The body of jurisprudence which has been built over the past decade in this area is no longer an idea subject to debate; it is a reality. These judicial advancements have built a solid foundation upon which economic, social and cultural rights judicial advocacy can be successfully undertaken, and upon which persons and communities can rely in order to enforce (all of) their human rights. And, these advancements demonstrate the human rights framework and human rights advocacy, including social movements using this framework in their advocacy, can move us all closer to social justice.
To cite just one example, only a few years ago, in South Africa hundreds of poor families were to be forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for upscale urban development in Johannesburg. While their housing was poor, and considered uninhabitable even by them, these families were to be forcibly displaced to the periphery of the city and thereby cut off from access to schools, health care facilities and livelihood opportunities. Using the human rights framework, however, these families and their allies in the NGO sector ultimately held powerful authorities accountable to human rights standards, including the right to adequate housing. At the end of the day, in 2008, the Constitutional Court of South Africa enforced their right to have human rights standards respected, protected and fulfilled, including not only the right to adequate housing, but also to benefit from development schemes and to participate meaningfully in all relevant decisions. In other words, human rights did what they were designed to do – to equalize power dynamics between poor families facing forced eviction and governmental authorities, so that the families could be the architects of their own solutions. Today, these families are living in improved housing near the same schools, health care facilities and the livelihood opportunities they came very near to losing. Participation, equality, inclusion and prioritization of the most marginalized are core human rights concepts.
This is what the future holds, and while there are many actors working in solidarity, and while it is healthy in any movement to have different points of view, there is still one human rights movement. We aren’t going anywhere. Without the human rights framework, these tools – rights with corresponding obligations set out in clearly articulated standards, accountability and remedies – would not be available to social justice movements of all kinds, in all parts of the world. The truth is that we need human rights now more than ever. While human rights advocates may not be able to take up the full spectrum of rights in all of our advocacy work, we must recognize and champion that spectrum, and we must recognize the interrelatedness of rights.
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GI-ESCR welcomes Vienna + 20 Outcome Document recognition of Extra-Territorial Obligations
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) welcomes the Outcome Document of the Vienna + 20 human rights conference, and in particular the recognition of the human rights obligations of inter-governmental organizations, which includes international financial institutions such as the World Bank and regional development banks, as well as the recognition of extra-territorial human rights obligations. The Vienna + 20 Outcome Document reflects the input of the Vienna + 20 Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Declaration, calling on governments to:
Ensure the accountability of those whose responsibility is engaged in connection with violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, in particular:
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international governmental organisations (IGOs);
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non-state actors, including transnational corporations (TNCs), private military and security companies and rebel groups;
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intelligence agencies in relation to their worldwide surveillance practices,
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also taking into consideration the extra-territorial obligations of States as reflected in the “Maastricht Principles”.
According to Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, "This clear statement not only further reaffirms the human rights obligations of international financial institutions (IFIs), including the extra-territorial obligations of Member States of IFIs to respect, protect and fulfill human rights abroad, but also makes clear that such human rights norms, and indeed the entire body of human rights, must be at the core of the post-2015 development framework."
The full Vienna + 20 Outcome Document can be found HERE.
The Vienna + 20 CSO Declaration can be found HERE.
GI-ESCR for ESCR welcomes Vienna + 20 CSO Declaration
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) welcomes the Vienna + 20 Civil Society Organizations Declaration on the primacy of human rights. Over 140 members of civil society came together on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action in order to move the human rights agenda forward. At the end of the conference, they adopted the Vienna + 20 CSO Declaration. As FIAN rightly noted, "The Vienna+20 CSO Declaration stresses the primacy of human rights. Respect, protection and fulfilment of all human rights are the first responsibilities of states. Despite progress made in human rights protection, vested interests, in particular corporate interests, tend to prevail, even in multilateral fora and agreements. Especially economic, social and cultural rights still lack adequate forms of legal sanctions as compared to other legal regimes such as international commercial law."
The CSO Declaration reaffirms that human rights take primacy, including in global and national development and financial frameworks. The Declaration addresses women's human rights, extra-territorial human rights obligations, the need for human rights to be at the core of the post-2015 development framework, environmental justice, food sovereignty, the need for legally binding human rights obligations of transnational corporations and other business enterprises, and the human rights of marginalized groups, among other issues. The Declaration also calls for the establishment of a World Court of Human Rights as originally envisioned in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of 1993.
CSO Representatives at Vienna + 20 CSO Conference
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights contributed in areas associated with its Strategic Priorities, namely women's human rights, extra-territorial obligations, and the post-2015 development framework. According to Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, "With the Vienna + 20 CSO Declaration, civil society has spoken clearly and with a concerted voice reaffirming the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and reminded States that human rights must take primacy, including in the post-2015 development framework." The Declaration was immediately sent to the State delegations at the Vienna + 20 conference.
The CSO Declaration will also guide and focus the work of the NGOs and CSOs at Vienna + 20 over the next several years and progress on implementing the Declaration will be monitored along the way. The CSO Declaration called for a Third World Conference on Human Rights in 2018 where the results of implementing the Declaration will be considered.
The CSO Declaration also influenced the Vienna + 20 Outcome Document, including in the area of human rights obligations of international financial institutions including extra-territorial obligations of Member States of IFIs.
Read the full CSO Declaration HERE.
GI-ESCR re-elected to the Steering Committee of the Extra-Territorial Obligations Consortium
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) was re-elected by its peers to continue serving on the Steering Committee of the Extra-Territorial Obligations Consortium. The GI-ESCR is pleased to continue working with its colleagues and partners who also serve on the Steering Committee and looks forward to contributing further to guiding the ETO Consortium in the coming years, including advancing the ETO agenda at the Vienna +20 World Conference on Human Rights.
The ETO Consortium is a network of leading human rights organizations, university institutes, civil society organizations and institution-based individuals. Its purpose is to address the current shortcomings of human rights interpretation in a globalization context by mainstreaming states’ extraterritorial obligations.
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has been a member of the ETO Consortium since the GI-ESCR’s founding and provides expertise to the Consortium’s International Financial Institution and Development Cooperation Focal Group as well as on strategic litigation.
For more information on the work of the GI-ESCR in this area see HERE.
For detailed information on Extra-Territorial Obligations and human rights see:
Maastricht Principles on Extra-Territorial Obligations and the Commentary to the Maastricht Principles on Extra-Territorial Obligations
Also see the FIAN flyer on ETOs HERE.
GI-ESCR Comments Regarding UN High Level Panel Report on Post-2015 Development Framework
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) welcomes some positive aspects of the UN High Level Report entitled A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Development, but is concerned that the report fails to fully place international human rights at the core of the post-2015 development agenda. Human rights standards, including economic, social and cultural rights standards, are clearly defined and should be used as the foundation and means of implementation of any forthcoming development framework.
The Report, which addresses the post-2015 global development framework, acknowledged that the MDGs fell short by not integrating the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, and by not addressing the need to promote sustainable patterns of consumption and production.
According to Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, "while we had hoped that the report would go further at challenging the current economic paradigm, the report does acknowledge inequalities and the need to ensure that participatory processes guide development." He added that "the recognition of environmental protection, including the challenge of climate change, as linked to human development marks a positive shift from the MDG framework yet human rights are treated more as rhetoric than as a core framework by which to guide, implement and monitor development."
Mayra Gomez, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, pointed out that the "inclusion of the gender dimensions of land rights is critical to ensuring women’s empowerment and sustainable development in the future. We know that women’s land rights have a profoundly transformative impact in terms of fostering gender equality, increasing food and nutritional security, and improving environmental sustainability. It was promising to see that the High Level Panel’s report included suggested Target 1b, which in part seeks to increase the share of women with secure rights to land and property.”
While the Report is a positive development, and clearly states that the next development framework must be based on human rights, advocates must build upon these pronouncements and continue to ensure that the full spectrum of civil, cultural, economic, political and social human rights are at the core of any post-2015 development framework. Such advocacy is crucial to ensure that human rights move from rhetoric to reality.
The full Report can be accessed HERE.
Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Annual Report 2012
Message from the Co-Executive Directors
Advocates for economic, social and cultural human rights (ESC rights) have a lot to be proud of. More than any other area of human rights, these rights have advanced markedly over the past two decades. International human rights bodies are increasingly developing the content of these rights; legal advocates and social activists are working diligently to enforce these rights at national as well as international levels; and some of the largest and most influential human rights organizations in the world – organizations like Amnesty International which used to be solely focused on protecting civil and political rights – have begun to embrace the ‘full spectrum of human rights,’ recognizing that violations of ESC rights represent some of the worst human rights crises of our time. These have all been substantial transformations which have moved ESC rights from the margins toward the fore of the human rights movement.
Yet, despite these advances, the reality for billions of people around the world is a continuing and systematic lack of access to basic rights, with devastating consequences day in and day out for the world’s poor. The truth is that all of us today live in an era of unprecedented inequality, and of unprecedented levels of global poverty. Sadly, there remains a stark chasm between the standards which exist protecting ESC rights, and their actual enjoyment on the ground.
In order to find solutions aimed at closing the gap and to discuss unmet needs in the field, in late 2011 the GI-ESCR convened a small brain trust of experts, advocates and leaders working across the human rights, development, women’s rights and the environmental justice sector. This strategy meeting allowed us to think collectively about some of the most pressing challenges facing the global movement for ESC rights, as well as how the GI-ESCR as a new organization seeking to engage in new ways, can work in concert with our partners to help overcome those challenges. The activities carried out over the course of 2012, and reported here, reflect those discussions and have continued to deepen collaborations with our partners.
The meeting identified critical tasks for the ESC Rights movement, including: (1) building and deepening cross-sector alliances (particularly with respect to the development, women’s rights, and the environmental sectors); (2) ensuring that poor and marginalized communities are well equipped with knowledge of their rights, and well positioned to claim them; (3) developing and sharing tools which demonstrate how ESC rights can be respected, protected and fulfilled in practice; and (4) braving new frontiers in standard-setting and enforcement. These are the threads that bind together our advocacy, and which set the stage for our achievements in 2012.
With these broader tasks in mind, in 2012 the GI-ESCR embarked upon its first full year of operations, and we are proud to say that we have achieved significant outcomes from our work – outcomes we see laying the foundation for transformative impact on the ground. These outcomes were realized across all three of our strategic priorities – namely strategic litigation and legal advocacy; advancing women’s and ESC rights; and human rights and development. While details of this work are listed below under the respective strategic priorities, there is overlap as the GI-ESCR strives for work at the intersection of these priorities. The GI-ESCR also works to incorporate advocacy in the area of environmental rights within all three priorities, particularly when the environment has an impact on human dignity.
Results in the area of strategic litigation include the first ever recognition by the UN Human Rights Committee of extra-territorial obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as the issuance of the first ever permanent injunction under the ICCPR preventing a threatened forced eviction and the first ever order for positive obligations related to connection of water services. These achievements have changed the landscape of ESC rights protection at the international level by using the principle of indivisibility of all human rights. These results are part of our continued efforts to ensure that those that violate housing rights – as well as the rights related to access to water and sanitation –are held accountable by the UN Human Rights Committee as violations under ICCPR. These successes before the UN Human Rights Committee have ensured that the principle of indivisibility of rights has real meaning and has expanded avenues for social rights enforcement under the ICCPR. A range of human rights advocates have already begun to use this expanded space for human rights accountability and remedies in their own respective advocacy, and we are proud to have helped pave the way.
In the area of women’s ESC rights, the GI-ESCR has played a vital role in the advancement of women’s land, housing and property rights at both international and regional levels. We believe that these rights are fundamental to improving women’s lives and to ensuring gender equality, and they cut across many of the sectors we seek to engage through the GI-ESCR. Here, we have sought to create and strengthen a coherent set of progressive norms and standards which can be used by advocates to orchestrate change on behalf of women’s rights to housing, land and other productive resources at various levels. In 2012, the GI-ESCR convened various panel discussions and strategic meetings on these issues, and engaged extensively with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UN-Women on these issues, including by preparing a background paper on women’s land rights for an Expert Group Meeting convened in 2012 by these two agencies which serves as the basis of a forthcoming UN Handbook. The GI-ESCR also stepped up advocacy efforts with the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) on these issues, including by facilitating access for grassroots women, with very positive results and strong Concluding Observations from both Committees on women’s right related to housing, land and other productive resources.
In the area of human rights and development, we have continued to advocate for a post-2015 development paradigm that fully incorporates the human rights framework, and ESC rights in particular. For instance, working with the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights, the GI-ESCR contributed to consultations around the post-2015 Millennium Development Goal agenda through publication of a paper on women and land rights. The paper pointed out that just as “discrimination against women and girls impairs progress in all other areas of development,” gender inequality in secure rights to land and property impedes progress in achieving inclusive economic and social development, environmental sustainability, and peace and security – dimensions the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda identified as requiring progress to build an equitable, secure, and sustainable world. The GI-ESCR also produced the first of its Briefing Papers on the human rights-based approach to development in the areas of water, participation, land, women migrant workers, and family planning. These papers not only discuss the rights-based approach with respect to these areas, but offer real world examples of how governments and other actors can best implement development plans within the human rights framework and the value of doing so.
Lastly, during 2012, the GI-ESCR also continued to carry forward the housing rights expertise that formally was housed at the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). Work related to housing rights included drafting a paper on the legal and jurisprudential aspects of security of tenure for the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, participating in an Expert Group Meeting on security of tenure convened by the Special Rapporteur, moderating the Gender Assembly at UN Habitat’s Sixth World Urban Forum, participating at the Gender Round Table at the World Urban Forum, and participating at the African Union – European Union Civil Society Human Rights Seminar. The GI-ESCR has also continued with the ongoing strategic litigation for which COHRE had been responsible, including cases before the UN Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
We are also happy to report that we have ended the 2012 fiscal year on a sound financial footing which lays the foundation for organizational growth in 2013 and beyond. We look forward to the GI-ESCR’s continued work and engagement with our partners worldwide to ensure that all of the gains we have achieve so far continue to move us toward the transformative impact we seek.
Mayra Gomez and Bret Thiele
Co-Executive Directors
GI–ESCR
Access a full copy of the Annual Report here.
Human Rights must be at the core of post-2015 Development Framework
Twenty-one leading human rights organizations call for human rights to be at the core of a post-2015 development framework.
Joint Statement: Human Rights for All Post-2015
May 2013
Human rights have surged to the forefront of the debate about what will succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. As human rights and social justice organizations worldwide, we feel compelled to lay out some of the baseline implications of embedding human rights into the core of the sustainable development agenda this time around.
At its essence, a post-2015 framework anchored in human rights moves from a model of charity to one of justice, based on the inherent dignity of people as human rights-holders, domestic governments as primary duty-bearers, and all development actors sharing common but differentiated responsibilities. Accordingly, the post-2015 framework should be designed as a tool to empower and enable people—individually and collectively—to monitor and hold their governments, other governments, businesses, international institutions and other development actors to account for their conduct as it affects people’s lives within and beyond borders. A sustainable development framework founded in human rights can serve as an instrument for people and countries to help unseat the structural obstacles to sustainable, inclusive and just development, and stimulate implementation and enforcement of all human rights—civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, the right to development and to environmental protection.
The post-2015 framework must then at the very least respect and reflect pre-existing human rights legal norms, standards and political commitments to which governments have already voluntarily agreed. International human rights, environmental and humanitarian law, the Millennium Declaration, as well as related international consensus documents agreed in Rio, Vienna, Cairo, Beijing, Monterrey and Copenhagen and their follow-up agreements must form its non-negotiable normative base.
If it is going to incentivize progress while also preventing backsliding and violations, human rights principles and standards must go beyond the rhetorical, and have real operational significance this time around. Amongst other things, anchoring the post-2015 agenda in human rights for current and future generations implies that the framework:
1. Upholds all human rights for all.The framework should stimulate improved human rights process and outcomes for all people, especially the most vulnerable, in all countries global North and global South. Along with economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, any successor framework must include commitments to protect freedom of association, expression, assembly and political participation if it is to ensure an enabling environment for an empowered civil society, and protect human rights defenders, including women human rights defenders, as central agents translating international political commitments into lived realities.
2. Stimulates transparency and genuine participation in decision-makingat all levels, throughout all policies including budget, financial, and tax policies. Access to information and consequential participation is not only a fundamental human right, but will also be critical to developing, implementing, and monitoring an effective and responsive post-2015 framework.
3. Integrates meaningful institutions and systems to ensure human rights accountability of all development actors. Lofty aspirations for a post-2015 agenda will surely fail if proper citizen-led systems of monitoring and human rights accountability are not built into the very DNA of the framework, with clear and time-bound commitments of all relevant actors. While states must remain the primary duty-holder in development, all development actors, including third-party states, the private sector and international institutions should be made responsive and accountable for achieving and not undermining global goals. Integrating substantive human rights criteria into assessments of progress towards development goals and commitments means monitoring both the policy and budgetary efforts of governments alongside development outcomes. Any post-2015 monitoring mechanism would benefit from constructive interaction with the existing human rights protection regime, as well as other relevant accountability mechanisms. National mechanisms, such as judiciaries, parliaments, national human rights institutions, reinforced by regional and international human rights mechanisms such as the treaty bodies and the Universal Peer Review mechanism, can help ensure the implementation of the post-2015 commitments. Likewise, the post-2015 development agenda is well-placed to encourage governments to improve access to justice for people living currently in poverty by monitoring measures to eradicate existing barriers.
4. Ensures that the private sector, at the very least, does no harm. The post-2015 framework must reflect current international consensus that governments have a duty to protect human rights through the proper oversight and regulation of private actors, especially business and private financial actors to guarantee in practice that they respect human rights and the environment, including in their cross-border activities. At the very least, no governments should allow their territory to be used for illegal or criminal activities elsewhere, such as tax evasion, environmental crimes or involvement in human rights violations, no matter the perpetrator.
5. Eliminates all forms of discrimination and diminishes inequalities, including socioeconomic inequalities must be priorities. To start, the timely collection and disaggregation of data on the basis of various grounds of compound discrimination is essential to identify, make visible and respond to inequalities and violations of human rights and to increase accountability. At a national level, data should be collected and disaggregated based on country-relevant factors as defined by rights-holders. Governments have a particular obligation under human rights law to protect the rights of the most marginalized and excluded and to take additional measures to ensure that they enjoy their rights on an equal basis with others. Protecting decent work, and diminishing wage disparities is also fundamental to reducing socio-economic inequality, as is reforming tax policy nationally and globally to unleash the resources necessary to finance human rights fulfillment.
6. Specifically and comprehensively supports women's rights. Addressing gender-based violence, guaranteeing sexual and reproductive rights, ensuring women’s rights to and control over land, property and productive resources and their economic independence, recognizing the care economy and ensuring women’s rights to social protection and the equal distribution of paid and unpaid work, and their rights to participation in decision-making are critical, not only to realize women's human rights and achieve gender equality, but for enabling women’s full and active participation in economic, political and social life.
7. Enable the currently disadvantaged and commonly discriminated against and excluded groups to be effective agents of their own developmentby drawing on the provisions of human rights standards aimed at eliminating discrimination on grounds such as race, disability, migrant or indigenous status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.
8. Upholds the legal obligation to fulfill the minimum essential levels of economic, social, and cultural rights, without retrogression, which would imply a focus on “getting to zero”through the provision of social protection floors, universal health coverage, food security, and other floors below which no one anywhere will be allowed to live.
9. Tackles structural drivers of inequality, poverty and ecological devastation at the global level. A genuine and balanced global partnership then would enable people and institutions to monitor the common but differentiated responsibilities of all actors to prohibit rather than perpetuate these global obstacles. To be good-faith partners then, governments, business and international institutions must assess the impact of their policies (e.g. corporate accountability, environment, trade, aid, tax, migration, intellectual property, debt, monetary, financial regulation) on human rights outside of their borders. Existing human rights norms can provide a common set of standards and useful yardstick to assess policy coherence for sustainable development.
At a time of great uncertainty, multiple crises and increasing insecurity and conflict, let us not found the 21st century sustainable development framework on 'bracketed rights’ and broken promises, but instead on a bold reaffirmation of human rights for all.
PDF version of the Joint Statement can be found HERE.
Signatories so far include: 1. Amnesty International 2. Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) 3. Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) 4. Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) 5. Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University (CWGL) 6. Center of Concern 7. Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) 8. Equilibres & Populations (EquiPop), France 9. European NGOs for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Population and Development (EuroNGOs) 10. Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 11. International Centre of Comparative Environmental Law, or Centre International de Droit Comparé de l'Environnement (CIDCE), France 12. International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), USA 13. Kepa, Finland 14. KULU-Women and Development 15. LDC Watch International 16. National Indigenous Women Federation (NIWF), Nepal 17. Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ) 18. Social Watch 19. Southern Africa Human Rights NGO Network (SAHRINGON), Tanzania Chapter 20. Terre des hommes Germany 21. WASH United, Germany
A first draft of this statement was prepared by the Securing Human Rights for All work session of the Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda global civil society conference in Bonn, Germany (March 2013). The statement is being circulated for endorsement by interested organizations. To get involved, please email Niko Lusiani, CESR at
Individual Complaint Mechanism for Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Enters Into Force
5 May 2013 The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) welcomes the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. With this Optional Protocol, rights holders have an important international mechanism to hold actors accountable to their human rights obligations.
The Optional Protocol creates mechanisms for Individual Complaints as well as State to State complaints and Inquiries initiated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights regarding obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
With the Optional Protocol, the international community comes much closer to treating “human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis” as required by the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights.
The Individual Complaint procedure provides an opportunity for everyone, including those living in poverty and other marginalized groups, to hold States accountable for respecting, protecting and fulfilling economic, social and cultural rights, including the human rights to adequate housing, food, water, sanitation, health care, education and social security. This procedure will also provide further clarity on the content on human rights, resulting in greater guidance for governments that seek to implement the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in good faith.
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is a member of the ESCR-Net Working Group on Adjudication and its Strategic Litigation Initiative (SLI). The SLI will work with human rights advocates to build capacity to use these new human rights enforcement mechanisms to their fullest, including working to ensure that resulting jurisprudence is informed by the voices of marginalized individuals, groups and communities and reflects progressive human rights ideals.
For more information on the Optional Protocol, and how to get involved with further advocacy around the Optional Protocol, see HERE.
