Thursday 11th September: Defending economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights.

The Manual project presented by Frontline on ESC rights was welcomed quite positively and the interest and usefulness of the project were unanimously approved. However in order to evaluate the project more precisely an opportunity to use it in daily work would be required.

Generally Latin American NGOs are very conscious of the indivisibility of human rights (HR) and the intrinsic link between poverty and violence. However discussion seems to bring to light the fact that NGOs- especially ‘social’ NGOs (most notably farming NGOs) - have developed a more integrated approach to human rights than ‘exclusively HR’ NGOs. This is undoubtedly explained by a desire not to enter into competition with one another as well as the fact that in certain countries ‘exclusively HR’ NGO’s can incur accumulated risks.

E.g. in Mexico when NGOs limit themselves to denouncing individual cases of violations of civil and political (CP) rights such as torture, executions etc. their work is more or less tolerated. On the other hand when they attack the deep roots of these violations which are often linked to economic and political interests, they can suffer strong repression.

* Training and creating awareness

At the local level the need for a pedagogical approach has again been making itself felt in the area of ESC rights. In Central America in general, the population’s perception of HR is limited to civil and political (CP) rights. The need for information, awareness and training is enormous and now more than ever it is necessary to work in close collaboration with the population/community according to a teaching strategy:

-to identify the actual situation and the needs of the community

-to analyse these needs in terms of rights/demands (for example, in Colombia local organisations claim a right to the land and have elaborated a legal plan on the development rights of the farmer.

-Communities elaborate plans that include both CP and ESC rights

E.g. In Honduras the plan entitled ‘plan de desarollo communitario’ and in Colombia ‘plan integral de desarollo’. These plans are presented to the national/local governments and most of the time they are simply ignored by the authorities. The communities themselves therefore try to put them into operation according to their abilities.

-need to educate and make people aware of ESC rights as well as basic rights, in particular via popular media

E.g. in Guatemala radio debates are concerned with the government’s public policies.

* Cooperation between the different sectors

All work on ESC rights should be a close collaboration between all participants; HR NGOs, unions, social partners, etc and all the more because governments try to isolate HR NGOs and reduce them to CP rights. A common factor in instances of successful denunciations concerning ESC rights is close cooperation between HR NGOs and social partners. This is in order to assume the interrelatedness of HR and to avoid conflict arising from rivalry. The initiative should come from the social NGOs with the HR NGOs playing a support and advisory role. The defence of individuals should not be restricted to specialised lawyers nor is it necessary to deal with cases in an isolated manner.

E.g. when the work code was being reformed in Guatemala HR NGOs contributed their legal expertise and provided ‘technical’ support to the unions. However the authorities still deal mainly with the latter. The same approach was adopted with farming organisations during the land reform and in both cases this allowed for positive cooperation. The other social partners, in particular unions, should moreover be known as defenders.

* Utilising regional and international HR mechanisms

Although some participants have mentioned the existence of accessible mechanisms of internal recourse in cases of ESC rights violations, the use of regional and international mechanisms seems to represent as important part of the work performed:

-submitting alternative concerns to pertinent UN committees

-despite its limitations the Inter-American system for the protection of HR can be used indirectly

E.g. in Guatemala cases of suppression of trade unionists were referred to the Inter-American Court of HR, which in spite of everything allowed the ESC rights violations to be brought to light.

-cooperating with the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

E.g. in Nicaragua investigation into and analysis of the labour conditions of lobster fishermen was carried out by the indigenous inhabitants and the unions in collaboration with the ILO which led to a publication and the presentation of a complaint in Geneva

* Monitoring tools and indicators

In the course of the discussion certain basic elements emerged concerning every pertinent political analysis of a country in relation to ESC rights:

-the need to analyse public policy, legislation, and norms in terms of their impact on ESC rights and the need to develop a national debate on public policy

-the need to understand, analyse and discuss the adoption of a national budget in order to see how it translates in real terms and the same in terms of how commitments taken by the government effect the poor, not only the official figures but also their results on the ground ( are the measures taken coherent, pertinent and effective)

E.g. in Guatemala NGOs were able to identify schools without teachers or premises as well as the budgetary positions of unattainable projects, etc.

-In general the major problem in these cases as well as in gathering information and statistics, is gaining access to information which is often declared confidential by the authorities

e.g. in Guatemala the problems experienced by NGOs when gathering information on the implementation of budgets and on hospital statistics on violent deaths etc

Finally participants have called for NGOs to elaborate in particular indicators common to ESC rights monitoring, the absence of which puts their work at a distinct disadvantage.

e.g. the main Brazilian union (CUT) put social surveillance in place which controls every transnational company’s adherence to the ILO’s norms and which compare labour conditions of employees in the country of origin with those of workers in Brazil in order to demand the same conditions for Brazilian workers as those accorded to mother company employees.