By Otto Spijkers
On 10 December 2008, the General Assembly adopted a resolution celebrating the Sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. More importantly, the Assembly also adopted a resolution containing the text of an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, granting a right to individuals and groups to complain about alleged violations of their rights granted to them in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These complaints will be examined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, based in Geneva.
Since 1976, individuals could already submit complaints with the Human Rights Committee, which monitors respect and observance of the rights guaranteed to individuals (not groups) under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These individual complaints were made possible with the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Although the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights entered into force before the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the treaties came into force on 3 January 1976 and 23 March 1976 respectively), the individual’s right to complain about violations of these economic and social rights was recognized by the General Assembly forty years after the same Assembly recognized the individual’s right to complain about violations of civil and political rights.
Of course, the right to complain does not come into being with the adoption of a UN General Assembly resolution. In general, such resolutions only recommend certain action by all members of the United Nations, and thus they do not create international legal obligations. Although the Assembly’s resolution of 10 December of last year, recommending all States to establish a right to complain, is a significant step, the real hurdle is the actual ratification of the Optional Protocol by the States that are party to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – preferably all 160 of them. That may take some time.
However, the threshold for the coming-into-being of this complaints procedure is not that high. Only ten of these 160 States need to ratify the optional protocol in order for it to enter into force. It must be noted that the complaints procedure for the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also needed 10 ratifications, and that took more than ten years. But the reason that it took so long in that case is not so much because of any difficulty in finding 10 willing States, but rather because of another condition: the entry into force of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights itself. Since both the Covenant and its Optional Protocol entered into force on 23 March 1976, the number of ratifications has risen drastically. At the moment, of the 164 States party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 111 States have recognized the right of individuals to complain to the Human Rights Committee.
Well… I think the role of the United Nations in defining and promoting human rights has been extraordinary. But we can debate that till the end of time. Obviously, I cannot prove that there would be no human rights without the UN, or that people’s lives would have been better without the UN. But why would I have the burden of proof here? Etc. etc.
Anyways. The United States of America is one of the few States that has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and that means there is no right to complain in America. After all, if the US Government believes that US citizens don’t have economic, social and cultural rights as defined in that Covenant, then you cannot complain about violations of these rights. So there is no need to please your wife with a dead sparrow. That is a Dutch expression: it means don’t give people something they cannot use, like a dead sparrow – which is a useless thing to have for most people, and expect them to be happy with it.
Ah yes, the “right of individuals to complain.” I’ll be sure to remind my wife that that right comes thanks to the United Nations General Assembly, even if the dysfunctional entity that is the UN won’t exactly protect that right or prevent me from exacting retribution for such complaints.