Erschienen in:in Malcolm Langford, Bruce Porter, Rebecca Brown and Julieta Rossi, eds, The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Commentary
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource (30 p)
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2481712
Identifikator:
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments 2014 erstellt
Beschreibung:
Article 8(4) of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is arguably at the centre of the OP-ICESCR. It requires that steps taken by States to realize rights under the Covenant be examined against the standard of “reasonableness.” Article 8(4) must be understood in the context of historical debates, revisited within the Open Ended Working Group charged with drafting the OP-ICESCR, about whether all components of ESC rights, including obligations linked to progressive realization, are fully justiciable. Article 8(4) represents an historic affirmation that all components of rights under the ICESCR are justiciable, including those engaging with States’ social policy choices. The “reasonableness” standard under article 8(4) derives from a number of sources, most notably from the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, which similarly recognized that there may be a “range” of policy options available to States to achieve compliance with ESC rights. The transformative dimensions of reasonableness articulated by the South African courts, ensuring that policies and programs be “capable of realizing the right in question” will also be important to the interpretation of 8(4). The reasonableness standard in 8(4) should generally be developed as a distinctive standard consistent with the purposes of the ICESCR. The CESCR may wish to consider how reasonableness has been determined by other international bodies, but it will be critical that the standard in 8(4) be applied within a substantive, transformative approach tied to the over-riding obligation to realize ESC rights, and that the standard be shaped over time upon hearing ESCR claims