| Economic, social and cultural rights are a core element of international human rights protection. This report considers aspects of the implementation of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in the UK. It takes as its starting point the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), on the UK's fourth report under the Covenant.
The ICESCR, as an international treaty, is binding on the UK in international law only. This report considers the UK system for the protection of economic, social and cultural rights in domestic law. Although the Covenant has a very limited impact in UK domestic law, many of the rights which the Covenant guarantees are protected in domestic legislation. However, where there are gaps in this legislative protection, the domestic legal system cannot always provide redress.
The report analyses the case for further legal effect to be given to the Covenant rights. We take it as our starting point that Parliament and Government must retain the primary responsibility for economic and social policy, but the report concludes that an acceptable model could be found for the incorporation of protection for economic, social and cultural rights into UK law and that the case for incorporating guarantees of the Covenant rights in domestic law, in a way that recognises the institutional limits of the courts' competence, merits further attention.
For the Covenant rights to be effective in practice, it is essential that they should be used as a framework for government policy development. The impact of new policies and legislative proposals on the Covenant rights and on the obligation to progressively realise those rights, should be assessed. The report proposes that Government, in co-operation with the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), should develop ways of measuring progress in achieving progressive realisation of key rights.
The report also considers the role of Parliament in the protection of economic, social and cultural rights, in scrutinising legislation for compatibility with the Covenant rights, and explores means of enhancing parliamentary scrutiny. The report proposes that the explanatory notes to relevant Bills should include a discussion of the compatibility of the Bill with the Covenant rights.
The new Commission for Equality and Human Rights will also have an important role in protection and promotion of the Covenant rights, in particular in education and information provision. A number of the functions envisaged for the CEHR in the white paper Fairness for All, including training, research, advice and inquiry, could be used by the new Commission to contribute to implementation of the Covenant rights.
The report considers the application of a rights-based approach to issues of poverty, homelessness and education. It also addresses the CESCR's concern about continuing discrimination faced by ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities in employment, housing and education, and urges the introduction of a single Equality Bill, to address these problems. Ratification of Protocol 12 to the ECHR, and acceptance of rights of individual petition under relevant human rights treaties, would also strengthen protection against inequality.
The report also addresses protection of workplace rights, including the introduction of the national minimum wage, and restrictions on the right to strike, which the CESCR considered to be in breach of Article 8 of the Covenant. It also considers issues of family life rights raised by the CESCR, including domestic violence and the physical punishment of children.
Finally, the report deals with the process by which the UK reports on its compliance with the Covenant, to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This process provides a valuable link between domestic policy and legal debates and the international system of human rights protection. In this regard the involvement of NGOs and civil society is important. The report suggests that the reporting process could be most effectively managed if responsibility for its co-ordination were transferred from the FCO to the DCA.
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