On Friday 5th March the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights hosted its annual meeting with civil society, engaging in a productive discussion with NGO representatives from across the globe.

The meeting follows last year’s inaugural annual NGO meeting, which was instituted as a result of GI-ESCR’s push to ensure that the Committee maintains space for dialogue with civil society. Such dialogue is especially important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where there is a very real danger that interruption to the Committee’s work could lead to a concomitant weakening of the relationship it shares with civil society organisations.

The Committee’s recent move to online work was one of the key topics discussed during the meeting, with NGOs and Committee members sharing their assessment of the online reviews of Latvia and Finland. Committee members also provided an update on their work on communications under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and fielded a number of questions on their follow-up to concluding observations, indicating that state implementation of their recommendations has often been insufficient.

The Committee also answered questions on its forthcoming General Comment on Land and informed civil society that a public draft will be published and opened for comments in mid to late March. Committee members provided further information on the elaboration of a General Comment on Sustainable Development and the ICESCR, making it known that they plan to discuss that topic during four online regional workshops.

NGOs raised a number of additional thematic issues with the Committee, including global food systems, business and human rights, the impact of COVID-19, including on mental health, and climate change.

Both Committee members and NGO representatives stressed that they had found the meeting to be a very useful event, and expressed a desire to see the arrangement continue next year.