In 1976 two important documents were adopted by the United Nations. These two covenants, together with the UDHR, form what is known as the International Bill of Rights. They are:

• the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and
• the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The adoption of these two covenants was undertaken by a far greater number of countries than was the case with the UDHR and they included rights linked to issues in developing third world countries. For example, Article 1 of both the covenants refers to the right to national self-determination, a right that was originally left out of the UDHR.

Note

The Optional Protocol to the ICCPR is linked to the ICCPR but it is regarded as a separate treaty and must be signed and ratified separately (to the ICCPR). The Optional Protocol creates a complaint procedure for individuals who want to report claims of abuses of rights.

All these covenants must be signed and ratified by governments before they can be bound by the provisions.

Read through the Summary of the ICCPR and the Summary of the ICESCR in the Resource centre. The Optional Protocol is dealt with in more detail in the Fahamu course, "Action for Change." Information on this course and other Fahamu courses can be found online at http://www.fahamu.org.

The two covenants deal with different categories of rights. Although we have said that rights are indivisible (see the section on 'Indivisibility of rights') they have been divided into categories through the two covenants.

ICCPR

The Internation Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) focuses on civil and political rights. It covers rights and freedoms such as the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, freedom from torture and inhuman treatment or punishment, freedom from slavery, and so on.

Civil and political rights and freedoms require the government (and its representatives) to respect people's rights and not to intervene when they want to use their rights.

For example, a government must allow people to hold a demonstration and not use force to break it up.

There are a number of other conventions/treaties that also give effect to civil and political rights.

For example the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment makes torture a criminal offence for countries that have ratified the convention (see also the sections on 'Other international human rights documents' and 'Indivisibility of rights').

ICCPR.pdf

ICESCR

We shall discuss the International Covenant on Economic, Social and cultural rights in more detail in the next chapter.

Courts and implementation of ESC

There is not a lot of case law to show that the courts will force governments to implement policies to make economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights real for people. This is because ESC rights depend on how much money and resources a government has available to spend on these rights.

Some people argue that the government should spend less on things like arms and defence and more on providing for peoples' basic living needs. The difficulties the courts experience when making these judgments is in the enforceability of the judgment. How can the court force a government to spend money on things like water provision, housing, and so on?

However, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights has identified the following rights of the ICESCR as capable of being enforced by the courts:

• right to non-discrimination and enjoyment of rights (article 3);
• right to fair and equal wages; equal pay for equal work (article 7);
• right to form and join trade unions and the right to strike (article 8);

• right of children to protection from economic and social exploitation (article 10);
• right to education (article 13.2);

• right of parents to choose schools for their children to ensure religious and moral education of their children (article 13.3);
• right to establish and direct schools (article 13.4);
• freedom for scientific research and creative activity (article 15.3).

ESC example

In 1999 the courts in South Africa gave an interesting judgment in a case, Irene Grootboom versus the State. The case was linked to the right of children to be provided with basic shelter.

Irene Grootboom lived with her children and a number of other families in an informal community. The local authority that owned the land said the people were squatting illegally on the land. They issued them with a notice of eviction and then took practical steps to evict them. The families were now homeless.

The community got together and took the local authority to court on the grounds that they and their children had a right to basic shelter under the South African constitution. The court agreed that the local authority had a duty to provide the children with basic shelter and their parents should be allowed to remain with them.

However, even though the people have won the right to basic shelter, the court has no way of enforcing a judgment of this nature. Three years later, the people are still living in the same place and it is not clear when the local authority will provide them with land as stated in the court judgment.

This case shows the problems associated with the enforceability of social and economic rights.

We are not able to list and analyse all the rights contained in the two conventions in this course. Our purpose is to introduce you to them and for you to understand their context in human rights law. However you can go to the websites already provided for a list of the rights in the conventions.

You can also read the following publications, which analyse the rights in the conventions:

Matching rights and convention articles

Go to the Human Rights Watch website at http://www.hrw.org/

You will find a number of references to human rights issues dealt with by Human Rights Watch.

Choose two of the human rights issues identified. Try and find out what articles in the ICCPR or the ICESCR are linked to these particular abuses. Identify the parties that are involved in the situation (the abused and abusers).

Now read through the following examples of human rights abuses and select the right and article in the ICCPR or ICESCR that is linked to each human rights abuse (in some cases two rights may apply which reinforces our earlier point that rights are indivisible and cannot easily be separated into categories).