Abstract
With the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW in 2000, four of the six main UN human rights treaties are now complemented with an individual complaints procedure. The proposal to establish an individual complaints mechanism for economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) meets with considerable political opposition. Progress has been jeopardised by an ongoing discussion on the nature of ESCR, which are still very often considered as second-class human rights. It is submitted here that the two main issues of debate – justiciability and the nature of the obligations of States – have been sufficiently clarified in recent years in order to allow for individual complaints. Ongoing reluctance to establish an individual complaints procedure for ESCR can therefore no longer convincingly be based on legal motives.
A new impetus to the debate on the establishment of an individual complaints procedure for ESCR was given in 2001, with the appointment of an independent expert, and in 2003, with the establishment of an open-ended working group. The suggested amendments to the draft for an Optional Protocol as prepared by the ESCR-Committee in 1996, may assist the working group in bringing the draft Optional Protocol in line with changed circumstances since 1996, with particular reference to the OP-CEDAW.