ESCR-Net and FESPAD co-facilitate ESCR strategic litigation workshop in El Salvador

ESCR-Net's Strategic Litigation Working Group (SLWG) and FESPAD co-facilitated a workshop on ESCR Strategic Litigation and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR) in El Salvador from 23-24 September. The workshop offered a space for dialogue based on this framework and was carried out with the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

With its ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR), El Salvador created an opening for strategic litigation focused on economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). ESCR-Net’s Strategic Litigation Working Group and FESPAD consider the OP-ICESCR to be an important tool in the protection and guarantee of ESCR.

International human rights litigation can provide remedy in situations of concrete rights violations, broaden the scope of reasoning and rulings by lawyers and judges and influence the content and implementation of public policies. Given these impacts, the OP-ICESCR is a complaint mechanism that has the capacity to provide effective protection of ESCR. As such, it is crucial to identify strategic cases and to analyze advantages and disadvantages in relation to other international and regional mechanisms.

The workshop brought together twenty participants, including human rights lawyers, activists and jurists from El Salvador, as well as experts in international ESCR mechanisms from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and the United States. Discussions successfully identified new strategies and opportunities for international litigation in Salvadoran cases. 

Please watch this video produced by FESPAD on the workshop.