Kleinlein: Social Rights Protection Through Core International Human Rights Treaties Beyond the ICESCR

Thomas Kleinlein (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena - Law) has posted Social Rights Protection Through Core International Human Rights Treaties Beyond the ICESCR (in Research Handbook on International Law and Social Rights, C. Binder, F. Piovesan, A. Úbeda de Torres, & J.A. Hofbauer eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter analyzes the protection of social rights through core international human rights treaties beyond the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Other core international human rights instruments, namely the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1979, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989, the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CRMW) of 1990, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of 2006 and even the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantee economic, social and cultural rights as well. Protection can be achieved either directly, i.e. through social rights provisions in other core human rights instruments, or indirectly, i.e. through different types of rights provisions which do not guarantee social rights themselves. Indirect protection can be achieved through non-discrimination provisions as applied to the protection of social rights. In this respect, a suitable distinction can be made between non-discrimination provisions that specifically address discrimination with regard to social rights on the one hand and general non-discrimination provisions like Article 26 ICCPR on the other. Moreover, considering the inseparability and interdependence of human rights, other substantive guarantees, albeit essentially civil or political rights, are, if understood accordingly, also relevant for the protection of social rights. Building on these distinctions, the chapter explains the legal framework for direct and indirect protection of human rights through other core international human rights treaties and highlights the challenge of coherence.