Part III Organs Monitoring Treaty Compliance, 12 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Subject(s):

Human rights

This chapter evaluates the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Committee has devoted, and seems likely to continue to devote, much of its energies to streamlining and refining procedures and to laying the foundations upon which a serious effort can be made to promote respect for economic, social and cultural rights. In many respects, the Committee has confronted problems which are common to all of the treaty bodies. In other respects, however, the challenges that confront it and the context in which it must work are significantly different from those of the other committees. Among the many factors that tend to distinguish its task are: the lack of conceptual clarity of many of the norms reflected in the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the ambivalence of most governments towards economic, social and cultural rights; and the absence of national institutions specifically committed to the promotion of economic rights qua rights.