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030480 KU Social Rights in International Law: Theory and Practice (2019S)

3.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 3 - Rechtswissenschaften
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 40 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Thursday 28.03. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
  • Friday 29.03. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
  • Monday 29.04. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM33 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum, 3.OG
  • Tuesday 30.04. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
  • Thursday 02.05. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM63 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 6.OG
  • Friday 03.05. 09:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
  • Friday 31.05. 14:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The course will focus on social rights in international law: the right to education, the right to health, the right to social security, the right to an adequate standard of living, including the rights to food, water and adequate housing. Although all human rights are nowadays considered as indivisible and interdependent, social rights have received less attention than civil and political rights in both domestic and international law, due to the prevalent perception in past decades that they were non-enforceable and non-justiciable programmatic rights. The course will show how this perception is outdated in contemporary international law. The course will present the historical evolution of social rights and the main universal and regional instruments, with a focus on the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, its interpretation in the general comments of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) that monitors its implementation, the nature and scope of state obligations to respect, protect and fulfill social rights as well as the controversial questions of justiciability, enforceability and extraterritorial effect. These issues will be covered from a practical perspective by examining the practice and most recent case law of the CESCR, the burgeoning case law of domestic courts, the decisions of the European Committee on Social Rights, those of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well as the approach of the European Court of Human Rights and other judicial and quasi-judicial bodies to address social rights issues in their jurisprudence on civil rights.

Assessment and permitted materials

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Examination topics

Reading list

Recommended reading

Eibe Riedel, Gilles Giacca, and Christophe Golay (eds), Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Oxford, OUP, 2016)

Ben Saul, David Kinley and Jaqueline Mowbray, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Commentary, Cases, and Materials (Oxford, OUP, 2014)

Manisuli Ssenyonjo, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law, 2nd ed. (London, Hart Publishing, 2016)

Manisuli Ssenyonjo (ed.), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (London, Routledge, 2016)

Malcolm Langford (ed.), Social Rights Jurisprudence: Emerging Trends in International and Comparative Law (Cambridge, CUP, 2012)

Malcolm Langford, Bruce Porter, Rebecca Brown and Julieta Rossi, The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Commentary (Pretoria, Pretoria University Law Press, 2016)

Daphne Barak-Erez and Ayeal Gross (eds), Exploring Social Rights: Between Theory and Practice (Oxford, Hart Publishing 2011)

Aristoteles Constantinides, ‘Economic and Social Rights’, in André Nollkaemper, August Reinisch, Ralph Janik and Florentina Simlinger (eds), International Law in Domestic Courts: a Casebook (Oxford, OUP, 2018) 657-702

CESCR, Fact Sheet No. 16 (rev.1), The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Christian Courtis, Commentary on the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Inter-American Institute of Human Rights/International Commission of Jurists, 2008)

Christina Binder and Thomas Schobesberger, ‘The European Court of Human Rights and Social Rights – Emerging Trends in Jurisprudence’, Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law (2015) 51-69

Fons Coomans, ‘The Extraterritorial Scope of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Work of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, 11:1 Human Rights Law Review (2011) 1-35

Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law entries
Eibe Riedel, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1996)
Eibe Riedel, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
Ulrich Becker, European Social Charter
Douglas Hodgson, Education, Right to, International Protection
Eibe Riedel, Health, Right to, International Protection
Angelika Nußberger, Social Security, Right to, International Protection
Chris Maina Peter, Standard of Living, Promotion of
Charles Majinge, Housing, Right to, International Protection
Kerstin Mechlem, Food, Right to, International Protection
Eyal Benvenisti, Water, Right to, International Protection

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Fr 06.05.2022 00:15