Kaleidoscope
Abstract
I. Origin and Background
The Council of Europe Ministerial Conference on Human Rights held in Rome in November 1990 gave fresh impetus to efforts to strengthen and revitalize the European Social Charter (ESC). It led to the formation of an ad hoc committee (CHARTE-REL) which met three times in the course of 1991 and produced the draft of a Protocol Amending the European Social Charter.2 Following its endorsement by the Committee of Ministers, the protocol was presented for signing at the Ministerial Conference held in Turin on 21-22 October 1991. The conference was held to mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the European Social Charter.
The Protocol revises and supplements the implementation mechanisms of the Social Charter, notably Articles 23-25 and 27-29. It represents a choice to strengthen socio-economic human rights through the improvement of the Charter's implementation system. Another possibility, of course, would be to attach individual rights in this field to the system of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by means of supplementing instruments (protocols).3 Although the work carried out in this direction (within the Council of Europe) had reached quite an advanced stage, priority was given to the former option.4 But it has not been easy to make headway by these means either, particularly when one considers that proposals for improvement have remained on the table for many years in spite of the evident inadequacies of the control mechanism of the European Social Charter.
The fact that it was possible to achieve a breakthrough at the start of the nineties has something to do with the changes in the political situation generally. Lamentations about the lack of political will for cooperation within the sphere of the Social Charter5 have given way to the adoption of a new agenda in which basic social rights, and the Charter in particular, play a prominent part. The transformations in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as problems associated with the development of western societies themselves have contributed to this development.6 In addition, there is the pressure weighing down on the Council of Europe in connection with activities within the EC (EC Social Charter, rulings of the European Court).7 The debate on guaranteeing socio-economic human rights has been stepped up (e.g. within the UN Human Rights Commission), and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), established to monitor compliance with the UN Social Rights Covenant has become much tougher in its procedural practice.8
The European Social Charter is thus being revitalized at a favourable and important juncture. This is all the more significant given the declining role of social human rights within the CSCE system. Finally, the unity of political and social human rights and certain generally valid principles for the arrangement of international supervision systems form the legal and political background to this process.