Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

GUIDE TO UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS MACHINERY

remit International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
  • periodic reports every 5 years
type of issues considered
  • equal rights for men and women to enjoy economic, social and cultural rights (Article 3)
  • employment rights (Articles 6 and 7)
  • trade union rights (Article 8)
  • social security rights (Article 9)
  • family rights (Article 10)
  • rights to an adequate standard of living (Article 11) and health care (Article 12)
  • education rights (Articles 13 and 14)
  • the right to participate in cultural life, benefit from scientific progress, and copyright and patent rights (Article 15)
  • all the above rights to beenjoyed without any discrimination (Article 2.2)
number of members 18 “experts with recognised competence in the field of human rights”
how nominated by States party to ICESCR
how elected by ECOSOC; for 4 year periods; can stand again; no more than one member per country; regard must be had to: geographical distribution, type of social and legal system;half committee stands down every 2 years
reports to ECOSOC
reports when annually
outline procedure
  • government submits report
  • NGOs make submissions
  • NGOs can request the opportunity to make oral submissions at the beginning of the pre-sessional working group, which meets in the week following each session to plan the work of the next session. The government is not present for this. NGOs can suggest questions to be put to the government
  • one member of the pre-sessional working group takes responsibility for each country reporting, i.e. preparing a draft list of issues to be considered by the pre-sessional working group and drafting the Committee’s concluding observations
  • NGOs can also request an opportunity to make oral submissions on the first afternoon of the session itself. The government does not participate but can observe
  • the country report is considered over three 3-hour meetings (for initial reports) and two 3-hour meetings (periodic reports) during the session
  • Committee meets in private to consider and adopt its concluding observations
current members (name, country of origin, date mandate expires)
  • Mr Mahmoud Samir AHMED (Egypt 2002)
  • Mr Clement ATANGANA(Cameroon 2002)
  • Ms Rocio BARAHONA RIERA(Costa Rica 2004)
  • Ms Virginia BONOAN-DANDAN(Philippines 2002)
  • Mr Dumitru CEAUSU(Romania 2002)
  • Mr Abdessatar GRISSA(Tunisia 2004)
  • Mr Paul HUNT(New Zealand 2004)
  • Mr Valeri KOUZNETSOV(Russian Fed 2002)
  • Mr Giorgio MALINVERNI(Switzerland 2002)
  • Mr Jaime MARCHAN ROMERO(Ecuador 2004)
  • Mr Sergei MARTYNOV(Belarus 2002)
  • Mr Ariranga Govindasamy PILLAY(Mauritius 2004)
  • Mr Kenneth Osborne RATTRAY (Jamaica 2004)
  • Mr Eibe RIEDEL(Germany 2002)
  • Mr Walid SA’DI(Jordan 2004)
  • Mr Philippe TEXIER(France 2004)
  • Mr Nutan THAPALIA(Nepal 2002)
  • Mr Javier WIMER ZAMBRANO (Mexico 2002)
un address Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais des Nations United Nations 8 -14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland
submissions by at least 2 months prior to date set for discussion of report
secretarY Mr. Alexandre Tikhonov
ROOM NUMBER Room 1-025
telephone 00 41 22 917 9321
fax 00 41 22 917 9046
e-mail atikhonov.hchr@unog.ch
relevant unleaflet(s) The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Fact Sheet No. 16/Rev.1 The International Bill of Human Rights Fact Sheet No. 2/Rev.1 NGO participation in activities of CESCR E/C.12/2000/6
established 1985
meets May and November, in Geneva
came into force uk 1976
last uk report September 1997
next uk report 2002
came into force Ireland 1990
last Ireland report June 1997 – considered May 1999
next Ireland report 2002
further reading The ICCESR: A Perspective on its Development, Matthew Craven, 1995