The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ─ Commentary, Cases, and Materials

This book brings together all essential documents, materials, and case law relating to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its Optional Protocol, one of the most important human rights instruments in international law. This book presents extracts from primary material alongside commentary and analysis, placing the documents in their wider context and situating economic, social, and cultural rights within the broader human rights framework.

There is increasing interest internationally, regionally, and in domestic legal systems in the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Optional Protocol of 2008 allowed for individual communications to be made to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the first time. At the regional level, socio-economic rights are well embedded in human rights systems in Europe and Africa. At the national level, constitutions and courts have increasingly regarded socio-economic rights as justiciable, narrowing the traditional divide with civil and political rights.

This book contextualises these developments within the role and impact of the ICESCR, and assesses the nature of those rights which are outside the Convention, such as the right to water, the rights of indigenous peoples, the right to development, and rights to peace and security. Providing detailed analysis of the ICESCR structured around its articles, drawing on national as well as international case law and materials, and containing all of the key primary materials in its extensive appendices, this book is ideal for the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists, government institutions, academics, and students alike.

Ben Saul is Professor of International Law at the Sydney Centre for International Law at The University of Sydney, and a barrister. He is internationally recognised for his work on terrorism, human rights, the law of armed conflict, and international criminal law, and his research has been cited in various international and national courts. He has published five books, over 50 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and over 150 other publications, and delivered hundreds of public seminars. He has taught law at Oxford, Sydney, UNSW, and in China, India, Nepal and Cambodia, and conducted training for numerous governments (including Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Laos, Nepal and Bhutan).

Professor David Kinley holds the Chair in Human Rights Law at University of Sydney, and is the Law Faculty's Associate-Dean (International). He is also an Academic Panel member of Doughty Street Chambers in London. He has previously held positions at Cambridge University, The Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, Washington College of Law, American University, and most recently was the founding Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University (2000-2005). He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 2004, based in Washington DC, and Herbert Smith Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge during the first half of 2008. He has written and edited eight books and more than 80 articles, book chapters, reports, and papers.

Jacqueline Mowbray is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sydney. She also teaches on the European Regional Master's Degree in Democracy and Human Rights in South-East Europe, based in Sarajevo. She is a graduate of the Universities of Queensland (BA/LLB (Hons)), Melbourne (LLM) and Cambridge (LLM (Hons), PhD).