ESCR-Net January/February 2014 Newsletter
The International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) involves over 250 Members in 70 countries, together building “a global movement to make human rights and social justice a reality for all.”
▪ Over 40 disability rights activists and health professionals, together with government officials, strategized implementing judicial remedies, addressing stigma and advancing community-based health services in Nepal, during a series of workshops on the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilitiesorganized by the ESCR-Net Strategic Litigation Working Group and national partners in Kathmandu.
▪ ESCR-Net Board held its annual meeting, hosted by El Instituto de Liderazgo Simone de Beauvoir, in Mexico City, including dialogues with ESCR-Net Members based in Mexico.
▪ Starting a new year of campaign actions, the NGO Coalition for the OP-ICESCR and national partners welcomed forty human rights activists and government officials to a workshop on ratification of the OP-ICESCR and its role in advancing the protection of ESC rights within Nepal, on 14 January 2014, in Kathmandu, Nepal.
▪ Members of the Social Movements Working Group use the ESCR-Netpublication "Land in the Struggle for Justice: Social Movement: Strategies to Secure Human Rights" to advance human rights.
▪ Women and ESCR Working Group publishes its Factsheet on Women's Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Arabic.
Upcoming events and activities
On Tuesday, 18 March, at 10:30am, the Women and ESCR Working Group is organizing a side event, which will bring together women from different parts of the world to present cases highlighting how a women's ESCR approach, foregrounding a substantive equality, provides a vital framework (both at the global and local level) for implementing and strengthening the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls (10th Floor, Church Center of the United Nations, 777 United Nations Plaza, NYC).
From 9-13 March, Dominic Renfrey, ESCR-Net Coordinator for the Corporate Accountability and Economic Policy and Human Rights Working Groups, will be in Geneva, to continue advocacy efforts towards advancing adoption of international binding instruments to address corporate human rights abuses; from 16 March until late May, Dom will then be based in Colombia, with Dejusticia, one of ESCR-Net Members and the co-host of the 2014 Peoples’Forum on Human Rights and Business.
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