The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at 50: The Significance from a Women’s Rights Perspective

Author(s): 
GI-ESCR and ESCR-Net

This publication by the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) and ESCR-Net, entitled The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at 50: The Significance from a Women’s Rights Perspective, celebrates the significance of the ICESCR from the perspective of advancing and ensuring gender equality and simultaneously points to ways in which the treaty can be utilized even more strategically and effectively to ensure that women’s ESC rights are fully respected, protected and fulfilled towards the goal of achieving gender equality. 

ICESCR provides an important normative framework for claiming and upholding ESC rights, and it recognizes the central principle of gender equality. In particular, the principle of substantive equality articulated by CEDAW and echoed by ICESCR is also integral to claiming women’s ESC rights. The right to gender equality is not subject to progressive realization, rather it is an immediate obligation of States parties under ICESCR to ensure that women are able to enjoy their right to equality in relation to ESC rights. This publication also seeks to overview the content of normative statements which CESCR has made over the years on various issues relevant to women’s ESC rights, and to highlight cases in which advocates have engaged with CESCR successfully to raise these issues and seek redress for violations of women’s ESC rights.  While it does not address the issue of implementation by States, the publication highlights CESCR’s commentary within the context of many specific country reviews.  

Read the complete publication here.