Giving Teeth to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (copy 1)

On Friday, 23.04.2004, the Commission on Human Rights closed its 60th session during which it voted to approve a further two years for the Working Group for an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The vote to renew the Working Group’s mandate is a success for the numerous NGOs working together to keep the Optional Protocol process going. Currently, there is no mechanism for the complaints of individuals when their rights under the Covenant are violated. Mechanisms for individual complaints already exist for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but many governments have resisted a similar move for the ICESCR.

FIAN, the international human rights organisations advocating for the right to food, has been the driving force of a global civil society coalition since it began lobbying for an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR in 1993. FIAN has been participating in meetings of the Working Group. During the session of the Human Rights Commission the danger had existed that the Working Group would be discontinued. Various amendments had been tabled by critical and opposing governments, that challenged the Resolution of the renewal of the mandate for the working Group to the Optional Protocol. On April 19th, 2004, the decision was eventually taken to «renew the mandate of the open-ended working group for a period of two years to consider options regarding the elaboration of an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights». Although there were no votes against the resolution, five states – Bahrain, Armenia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar – abstained.

FIAN and other NGOs welcomed this outcome, which secures the continuation of discussions on the elaboration of an Optional Protocol for the coming two years. However, the results so far have fallen behind expectations. Although many states have expressed their support for an Optional Protocol, no concrete drafting proposals have so far taken place. States that support an Optional Protocol have been facing tough resistance from unsupportive states that question the entire process. Nevertheless, the renewal of the mandate of the Working Group for another two years opens up the possibility of beginning the actual drafting of the Optional Protocal by 2006.