Caselaw Database - All Cases

ESCR-Net Caselaw Database: A database on domestic, regional and international decisions regarding Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

This was a class action brought on behalf of children residing in a school district with a comparatively low property tax base - 98% of whom were Mexican-American. The plaintiffs challenged the reliance of the State of Texas on local property taxes to finance schools, which meant that students in poorer districts received only two-thirds of the amount students received in the wealthier districts.

Sandra Lovelace, a Maliseet Indian, lived on the Tobique Reservation with her parents until she married a non-Indian man. The marriage ended, and Ms. Lovelace returned to the reservation to live with her parents, however, she could not purchase a home on the reserve because the council prioritized housing for members of the group.

Petitioners, pensioners of the Latvian State, challenged the constitutionality of the Law on State Pension and State Allowance Disbursement in the period from 2009 to 2012 (hereinafter the "Disbursement Law"), which had been passed in an effort to reduce the State's budget deficit.  The overall economy was rapidly declining in 2009, and the Latvian Parliament argued that it had to act quickly to respond to the country's economic crisis.  The law decreased the amount received by current pensioners by 10% and decreased the pensions of future pensioners (individuals currently employed) by 70%.

In this case, the South Fork Band and other Western Shoshone tribes were appealing a lower court decision denying an injunction[1] against the construction of the gold mine. In their appeal to the Court, the South Fork Band argued that an injunction should be granted against Barrick Cortez because the U.S.

In the 1970s, the Kenyan government evicted hundreds of Endorois families from their land around the Lake Bogoria area in the Rift Valley to create a game reserve for tourism.  The Endorois, an indigenous people, had been promised compensation and benefits, but these were never fully implemented, and the community's access to the land was restricted to the discretion of the Game Reserve Authority. This prevented the community from practicing their pastoralist way of life, using ceremonial and religious sites, and accessing traditional medicines.

A group of homeless people erected overhead shelter in the form of tents, tarps and cardboard boxes at a local park in the City of Victoria.  The City sought a permanent injunction (legal order requiring the homeless to refrain from erecting shelters) and declaration that such structures contravened the Park Regulation Bylaw and Streets and Traffic Bylaw. The City had a documented shortfall of spaces in homeless shelters.

In SERAP v. Nigeria, the ECOWAS Court[1] considered whether it had the jurisdiction to adjudicate a claim involving the right to education under the African Charter, even if such a right was arguably non-justiciable in domestic constitutional or statutory law. The complainant initiated the case due to lack of adequate implementation of Nigeria's Basic Education Act and Child's Rights Act of 2004.

Five residents of Phiri in Soweto brought a case against the City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg Water (a company wholly owned by the City) and the national Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry. There were two key questions at issue.

The case was filed in March 2003 to force the Comisión Nacional de Pensiones Asistenciales (national agency in charge of welfare pensions) to grant a disability pension to Daniela Reyes Aguilera, a Bolivian girl who has a disabling condition preventing her from moving legs and arms, speaking, and eating on her own. Article 1, paragraph "e" of Decree 432/1997, which requires foreign citizens to prove legal residence in Argentina for at least twenty years in order to qualify for disability pensions, was contested as unconstitutional.

During Unocal's construction of an oil pipeline in Myanmar, it hired Myanmar's military for security while the pipeline was built. The villagers in the area where the pipeline was being constructed alleged the military forcefully evicted them, forced them to work on the project and raped, murdered and tortured them.