The Exchange

Colm was elected Vice-President of the European Committee on Social Rights, the adjudicatory and monitoring body for the European Social Charter. He discusses the role of the Committee and of social rights in today’s world.

The European Committee on Social Rights is the adjudicatory body that assesses state compliance with the European Social Charter and the revised Social Charter. It is a Council of Europe body made up of 15 individuals nominated by states but who sit as independent experts.

We make regular findings of violation. The Committee is sometimes accused of making too many findings of violation – we are certainly not accused of making too few findings of violation. Ratifying states have sometimes expressed the view that our case law is unrealistic but we simply interpret the Charter as we see it in line with our normal international interpretive mechanism and existing precedent.

The Committee is addressing some very interesting issues under its collective complaints procedure at the moment. For example, we are being asked to take a decision in respect of access to health care for Roma in eastern Europe; also in respect of sex education in Croatia and whether it is open enough to other modes of sexual orientation; there are also interesting cases in France about how housing policy is structured – is enough being done for the most disadvantaged in society?

Any economic downturn gives rise to a lot of issues from a social rights perspective. Although a very bad time for social protection, the current situation also gives rise to very fundamental issues about how we structure our societies, and it actually offers opportunities for new models of society to be discussed and opportunities, perhaps, for social rights.

I consider that if you say something is a social right, it should be applied in good times and bad times. We should not be defining anything as a social right that would not be able to be applied in a serious economic downturn. Recent case law in the South African courts on social rights shows that they are certainly capable of being protected in an economic downturn. The UN Committee on economic, social and cultural rights got it right with the minimum core and progressive realisation elements. We should have a minimum core of social rights and then address what is reasonable in providing more social protection. Some say this is too minimalistic. I disagree.