2022
Social Rights in Chile’s constitutional debate
Chile’s Constitutional Convention opened different channels to present proposals for the new chart. One was a citizen participation channel called Popular Initiative of Constitutional Content and another was the Initiative of Constitutional Content where the representatives could present normative proposals. The first mechanism required the collection of, at least, 15,000 citizens signatures for the proposal to be analysed and voted by the Convention. The second path needed the support of at least eight constituents to be discussed.
GI-ESCR and its partners decided to use both mechanisms simultaneously, mobilising one comprehensive initiative on public services and tax justice to guarantee social rights. In January 2022, GI-ESCR and partners unfolded a campaign to collect the 15,000 signatures under the slogan, “Without resources and public services, there are no social rights.” The campaign included social media, media coverage, and street points to collect signatures. GI-ESCR coordinated the campaign, which progressively gathered the support of new social movements and progressive think tanks, which helped spread the word and invite people to sign the petition.
At the same time, GI-ESCR led a round of meetings with members of the constitutional convention to present our proposal and ask for their support within the Convention. We approached 32 of the 154 members of the Convention.
GI-ESCR and its partners gathered 16,388 signatures supporting the popular initiative, which granted citizens legitimacy to our proposal. Simultaneously, they presented it to the convention with the support of 12 of its members. Therefore, GI-ESCR secured that the Constitutional Convention will discuss and vote on the incorporation of universal and quality public services and fair and progressive fiscal justice provisions.
2020
Private Actors & Social services
In the first year since adoption, the Abidjan Principles on the right to education have been endorsed by civil society organisations and have been recognised as a tool for States to ensure the realisation of the right to education by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education also endorsed the Abidjan Principles and in her June 2019 report she discusses how they can be used for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on education. The Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) recognised the Abidjan Principles on the right to education as a ‘valuable specialised source of interpretation’ of State obligations with regard to the right to education within the framework of the Inter-American system in a report published in January 2020. The Independent Expert on the Effect of Foreign Debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of human rights recognised the Abidjan Principles in a new report on private debt and human which links debt and social services.
The Abidjan Principles have been also recognised by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)’s private sector engagement strategy (2019), which could influence the allocation of billions of dollars in development aid. Civil society organisations around the world are mobilised to use the Abidjan Principles through trainings and engagement with States. The right to education has been put at the core of policy debates in education, as seen for instance at a public debate at the UNESCO specialised education agency.
In November 2019, the Abidjan Principles were selected as one of the ten ‘most promising governance projects’ by the Paris Peace Forum and will receive support to scale-up throughout 2020. The Abidjan Principles were selected among 716 projects from 115 countries that applied in the call for projects. GI-ESCR and the Right to Education Initiative will work together with the Pairs Peace Forum on the scaling up efforts.
2019
Private Actors & Social services
On 13 February 2019 the Abidjan Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education were successfully adopted, by over 50 eminent experts on the right to education, following a three-year consultative process with decision-makers, communities and practitioners. We coordinated the process as a member of the Secretariat, which also included individual from Amnesty International, the Right to Education Initiative, Equal Education Law Centre and the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights.
2018
Extra-territorial Obligations
GI-ESCR successfully advocated to have ETOs systemically monitored and enforced in several General Comments and Recommendations by UN treaty bodies: General Comment No. 24 of the CESCR dealing with business and human rights; and CEDAW: No. 34 on rural women, No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, and No. 37 on gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change.
2017
PrivatE ACTORS & Social Services
GI-ESCR worked to mobilise the francophone community in West Africa to solidify a position on funding for privatised social services. This work contributed to the French development aid Minister issuing a landmark statement against French funding in support of privatising education in Africa.
2016
Women's ESC Rights
In partnership with ESCR-Net, we released a publication entitled ‘The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at 50: The Significance from a Women’s Rights Perspective.’ The publication celebrates the significance of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from the perspective of advancing and ensuring gender equality and simultaneously points to ways in which the treaty can be utilised even more strategically and effectively to ensure that women’s ESC rights are fully respected, protected and fulfilled towards the goal of achieving gender equality.
2016
Extra-territorial Obligations
Our strategic advocacy work on ETOs, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) culminated in the adoption of an official statement on austerity measures and public debt, which included ETOs in the context of international financial institutions.
2015
Privatisation of Social Services
A global group of education stakeholders began working together to develop human rights Guiding Principles (referred to as ‘the Guiding Principles’) that compile existing customary and conventional human rights law as it relates to the provision of education, including its delivery by private actors.
2014
PRIVATE ACTORs & SOCIAL SERVICES
GI-ESCR started work on a multi-country research and advocacy project. Th project is coordinated by PERI, and is facilitated by GIESCR in collaboration with the Right to Education Project, and a number of national partners. The project has produced empirical research, UN parallel reports, and advocacy, in 12 countries.
2014
Women's ESC Rights
GI-ESCR released a new tool on Using CEDAW to Secure Women’s Land and Property Rights. The purpose of this Guide is to provide those wishing to use the Convention and its Optional Protocol to secure the land and property rights of women, with advocacy information, advice and tools. Our Guide is directed at NGOs and advocates working on these specific issues. (see also ‘Using CEDAW and its Optional Protocol to advance women’s land and property rights.’)
2014
Women's ESC Rights
On Swaziland, after presenting a parallel report to the CEDAW Committee on women’s land and property rights, the CEDAW Committee’s Concluding Observations highlighted women’s land rights in ways consistent with parallel reporting to the Committee. Here, the Committee asked the State party to ‘Eliminate all cultural barriers which restrict women’s access to land, particularly in rural areas’, and to ‘repeal the doctrine of marital power in order to ensure full compliance with Article 15 of the Convention so that women have identical legal capacity to that of men to be able to conclude contracts and to administer property as well as to sue or to be sued in their own right. Upon learning of these and other relevant Concluding Observations, our partners said to us that they were ‘over the moon!’
2014
Extra-territorial Obligations
Filed the first Individual Complaint before the Human Rights Committee dealing with ETOs in the context of corporate accountability, requiring States to regulate trans-national corporations for activities abroad and provide access to accountability and remedies in the case of violations.
2014
Right to adequate housing
In a landmark ruling, the High Court of Kenya relied on the amicus intervention by GI-ESCR and read international human rights standards into the understanding of the Constitution of Kenya and ordered that the forcibly evicted community be returned to their lands, have their homes rebuilt and be compensated for their losses. The court also awarded the victims 224.6 million Kenyan Shillings (about US$2,660,000). In addition, the first case under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights dealt with evictions in the context of the housing crisis in Spain. The amicus intervention addressed systemic issues such as eviction in the context of the housing foreclosure crisis due in part to the financial crisis and austerity measures. The case set a precedent for amicus curiae interventions under the Optional Protocol and resulted in expanding the due process protections related to the prohibition on forced eviction to evictions in the context of foreclosure.
2013
Women's ESC Rights
GI-ESCR successfully worked with partners, including IGED-Africa, ISLA, FIDA-Kenya and others, for the adoption of African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ground-breaking Resolution 262 on Women’s Right to Land and Productive Resources, and since that time have been building on this effort by working towards a new General Comment on women’s rights to equality upon dissolution of marriage.
2013
Women's ESC Rights
GI-ESCR was invited to be a keynote speaker during CEDAW’s (UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) day of discussion on the Rights of Rural Women. Over the years we presented multiple interventions to shape the content of CEDAW’s General Recommendations on rural women, violence against women and disaster risk reduction in a changing climate.
2012
Privatisation of Social Services
GI-ESCR initiated work on the human rights impacts of privatisation in education. This work has resulted in the first ever pronouncements critiquing the detrimental impacts of privatisation of education, in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Morocco, Chile and Brazil. This has led to a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education which recognised education as a public good and the obligation to ensure that the privatisation of education does not have any detrimental human rights impacts.
2012
Extra-territorial Obligations
GI-ESCR intervened with a Parallel Report to the UN Human Rights Committee regarding violations of Germany’s extra-territorial obligation to ensure human rights by not regulating or holding accountable a German corporation complicit in forced evictions in Uganda.
2012
Women's ESC Rights
GI-ESCR first partnered with the Federation of Women Lawyers – Kenya (FIDA-Kenya) to draft a parallel report addressing Kenya’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The report addressed discrimination against women in the areas of housing as well as access to, control over and the use of land and other productive resources. The Human Rights Committee in its Concluding Observations asked that the State of Kenya ‘guarantee equality between men and women in the devolution and succession of property after the death of a spouse’ and that it ‘enact legislation reforming its matrimonial property law.’
2011
Right to adequate housing
GI-ESCR has played a leadership role within the ESCR-Net Strategic Litigation Working Group by undertaking cases dealing with forced evictions in Kenya and the first ever amicus curiae intervention under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Kenya case stands out as a landmark result. Working closely with the affected community and Haki Jamii, the GI-ESCR took the lead in drafting an amicus curiae intervention aimed at informing the new Constitution of Kenya by bringing in international human rights standards as well as comparative law from South Africa. The amicus curiae brief was drafted by the GI-ESCR on behalf of the ESCR-Net Adjudication Working Group’s Strategic Litigation Initiative.
2011
Right to adequate housing
GI-ESCR submitted an individual complaint against Bulgaria to prevent a forced eviction in Sofia was the first complaint of its kind before the UN Human Rights Committee. Following our intervention, the Human Rights Committee issued a landmark decision in which it ordered a permanent injunction preventing the forced eviction of the community as well as the reestablishment of access to water. With this win the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has been opened as an additional avenue for the enforcement of certain aspects of social rights. See here: more information
October 2011
Launch of GI-ESCR
GI-ESCR launches with a focus on issues of extra-territorial human rights obligations (ETOs), women’s rights to land and other productive resources, housing rights, and human rights in the context of development.