Recognized rights
Contenido
La siguiente tabla recoge los derechos humanos plasmados en cada artículo del Pacto Internacional de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales.
Labor rights
Article 6 of the Covenant recognizes the right to work, defined as the opportunity for everyone to earn a living through work freely chosen or accepted.[29] Parties are obliged to adopt "appropriate measures" to guarantee this right, including technical and vocational training and economic policies aimed at regulating economic development and ultimately, full employment. The right implies parties must ensure equal access to employment and protect workers from being unfairly deprived of employment. They must prevent discrimination in the workplace and ensure access for the disadvantaged.[30][31] The fact that work must be freely chosen or accepted means parties must prohibit child or forced labor.[30][32].
The work contemplated in Article 6 must be decent work.[30][33] This is really the meaning of Article 7 of the Covenant, which recognizes the right of everyone to “just and favorable” working conditions. These in turn are defined as a fair wage, with equal remuneration for equal work, sufficient to provide a decent life for workers and their dependents; safe working conditions, equal opportunities in the workplace; and sufficient rest and recreation, including limited work hours and regular paid vacations.
Article 8 recognizes the right of workers to form or join unions and protects the right to strike. These rights are allowed to be limited to members of the armed forces, police or government officials. Several parties have placed reservations on this clause, allowing it to be interpreted consistently with their constitutions (China, Mexico), or extending the restriction of union rights to groups such as firefighters (Japan).[3].
Right to social security
Article 9 of the Covenant recognizes "the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance."[34] The parties are required to provide some type of social insurance scheme to protect individuals against the risks of illness, disability, maternity, accidents at work, unemployment or old age, to provide survivors, orphans and those who cannot pay for health care, and to ensure that families are sufficiently supported. Benefits of this regime must be adequate, accessible to all, and always without discrimination.[35] The Pact does not limit the type of system, both contributory and non-contributory plans are permitted (as are community-based and mutual schemes).[36].
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has taken note of the persistent problems with the application of this right, with very low levels of access.[37].
Several parties, including France and Monaco, have reservations that allow them to establish residency requirements to benefit from social benefits. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights allows these types of restrictions, as long as they are proportionate and reasonable.[38].
Right to family life
Article 10 of the Covenant recognizes the family as "the natural and fundamental unit of society", and requires the Parties to agree to "the widest possible protection and assistance".[39] Parties must ensure that their citizens are free to establish families and that marriages are freely contracted and not forced.[40] Parties must also provide paid leave or adequate social security to mothers before and after childbirth, an obligation that overlaps with Article 9. Finally, parties must take "special measures" to protect children from economic or social exploitation, including establishing a minimum age of employment and restricting children from dangerous and harmful occupations.[41].
Right to an adequate standard of living
Article 11 recognizes the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living. This includes, but is not limited to, the right to adequate food, clothing, housing, and "a continuous improvement of the conditions of existence."[42] It also creates an obligation on the parties to work together to eliminate world hunger.
The right to adequate food, also known as the right to food, is interpreted as requiring "the availability of food in sufficient quantity and quality to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free of harmful substances, and acceptable to a given culture."[43][44] This must be accessible to all, which implies an obligation to provide special programs for vulnerable groups.[45] The right to adequate food also implies a right to water.[46][47].
The right to adequate housing, also known as the right to housing, is "the right to live somewhere in safety, peace and dignity."[48] It requires "adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate lighting and ventilation, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location in relation to work and basic services - all at a reasonable cost."[48] Parties must ensure security of tenure and that access is free of discrimination, and to eliminate progressively home work. Forced evictions, which are defined as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or lands they occupy, without provision of, and access to, adequate forms of legal or other protection”, are, prima facie, a violation of the Covenant.[49].
Right to health
Article 12 of the Covenant recognizes the right of everyone to "enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health."[50] "Health" is understood not only as a right to be healthy, but as a right to control one's health and body (including reproduction), and to be free from interference, such as torture or medical experimentation.[51][52] States must protect this right, ensuring that everyone within their jurisdiction has access to the determinants of health, such as drinking water, sanitation, food, nutrition and housing, and through a global health care system, which is available to all, without discrimination, and economically accessible to all.[53][54].
Article 12.2 requires parties to take concrete measures to improve the health of their citizens, including reducing infant mortality and improving child health, improving environmental and occupational health, preventing, controlling and treating epidemic diseases, and creating conditions to ensure equality and timely access to medical services for all. These are considered "illustrative, not exhaustive examples", rather than a complete statement of the parties' obligations.[55].
The right to health is interpreted as requiring parties to respect women's "reproductive rights by not limiting access to contraception or intentionally censoring, concealing or distorting the withholding" of information about sexual health.[56] They must also ensure that women are protected from traditional harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.[57].
Right to education
Article 13 of the Covenant recognizes the right of everyone to education. This is directed towards "the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity",[17] and helping all people to participate effectively in society. Education is perceived as a human right and as "an indispensable means of realizing other human rights", and therefore this is one of the largest and most important articles of the Covenant.[58][59].
Article 13.2 lists a series of concrete measures whose parties are obliged to follow to realize the right to education. These include the provision of free, universal and compulsory primary education, “widespread and accessible” secondary education in its various forms (including technical and vocational training), and equally accessible higher education. All of these should be available to everyone without discrimination. The parties must also develop a school system (although it may be public, private or coeducational), encourage or provide scholarships for disadvantaged groups, and are encouraged to make education free at all levels.
Articles 13.3 and 13.4 require the parties to respect the educational freedom of parents by allowing them to choose and establish private educational institutions for their children, also known as educational freedom. It also recognizes the right of parents to "receive religious or moral education consistent with their own convictions."[60] This is interpreted as requiring public schools to respect the freedom of religion and conscience of their students, and as prohibiting the teaching of a non-discriminatory religion or belief system unless exemptions and alternatives are available.[61]
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights interprets the Covenant as well as requiring States to respect the academic freedom of staff and students, as this is vital to the educational process.[62] It also considers corporal punishment in schools to be incompatible with the Covenant's fundamental principle of the dignity of the person.[63].
Article 14 of the Covenant obliges parties that have not yet established a system of free and compulsory primary education to rapidly adopt a detailed plan of action for its introduction "within a reasonable number of years".[64].
Right to participation in cultural life
Article 15 of the Covenant recognizes the right of everyone to participate in cultural life, enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, and to benefit from the protection of the moral and material rights to any scientific discovery or artistic work they have created. This latter clause is sometimes seen as requiring protection of intellectual property, but the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights interprets it as primarily protecting the moral rights of authors and "proclaim[ing] the intrinsically personal character of every creation of man and the consequent enduring relationship between the creator and his creation."[65] Therefore, it requires parties to respect the right of authors to be recognized as the creator of a work. Material rights are interpreted as part of the right to an adequate standard of living, and "do not have to cover the entire life of an author."[66].
The parties must also work to promote the conservation, development and dissemination of science and culture, "respect the indispensable freedom for scientific research and creative activity",[67] and promote international contacts and cooperation in these areas.