The treaty system of the European Social Charter is an integrated set of international standards concerning social rights and a mechanism for monitoring their implementation within the States concerned.
This treaty system:
guarantees a broad range of human rights with respect to everyday essential needs related to employment and working conditions, housing, education, health, medical assistance and social protection;
lays specific emphasis on the protection of vulnerable persons such as elderly people, children, people with disabilities and migrants. It requires that enjoyment of the abovementioned rights be guaranteed without discrimination;
is based on the principle of universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelation of human rights, as set forth in the United Nations’ Vienna Declaration of 1993, which confirms that social rights are human rights on an equal footing with civil and political rights;
complements at pan-European level the safeguards contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, which specifically refers to civil and political rights.
In this framework, while taking into account the evolution which has occurred in Europe since the European Social Charter (ETS No. 35), adopted in 1961, the Revised European Social Charter (ETS No.163), adopted in 1996:
embodies in a single instrument all the rights guaranteed by the 1961Charter and its Additional Protocol of 1988 (ETS No. 128),
adds new rights and amendments adopted by the Parties.
The Revised Charter is gradually replacing the initial 1961 treaty.
Signatures and ratifications
Today, the Charter treaty system is one of the most widely accepted human rights set of standards within the Council of Europe. The widespread support for social rights is assured by the fact that 43 out of the 46 member States of the Council of Europe are parties to either the 1961 Charter or the Revised Charter.
Only Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland have not ratified either of these treaties.
The Charter is based on a ratification system, enabling States, under certain conditions, to choose the provisions they are willing to accept as binding international legal obligations. They are encouraged to progressively accept all the Charter’s provisions.
Enforcement of the Revised Charter is submitted to the same monitoring mechanism as the 1961 Charter, i.e. the reporting system; this system was further developed and strengthened in 1991 by an Amending Protocol (ETS No. 142), which is applied on the basis of a decision taken by the States concerned.
In this framework, the honouring of commitments entered into by the States Parties is subject to the monitoring of the European Committee of Social Rights.
This body monitors compliance under the two existing monitoring mechanisms:
through collective complaints lodged by the social partners and other non-governmental organisations (collective complaints procedure),
through national reports drawn up by States Parties (reporting system).
Insofar as they refer to binding legal provisions and are adopted by a monitoring body established by a binding treaty and the relevant protocols, decisions and conclusions of the European Committee of Social Rights must be respected by the States concerned, even if they are not directly enforceable in the domestic legal systems. They set out the law and can provide the basis for positive developments in social rights through legislation and case-law at national level.
Ultimately, it falls to the European Committee of Social Rights to determine whether the situation has been brought into compliance with the Charter by the State Party concerned. This is done by the Committee in the framework of the reporting system or the collective complaints procedure.
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States Parties to the European Social Charter are invited to report on health, social security and social protection by 31 December 2020
The European Committee of Social Rights transmitted the questions to States Parties of the Revised European Social Charter and the 1961 Charter relating to the provisions belonging to the thematic group 2 on health, social security and social protection under the reporting procedure. States parties are invited to report on the accepted provisions under the following articles: Article 3 (the right to safe and healthy working conditions), Article 11 (the right to protection of health), Article 12 (the right to social security), Article 13 (the right to social and medical assistance), Article 14, (the right to benefit from social welfare services), Article 23 or Article 4 of the of the Additional Protocol (the right of elderly persons to social protection), and Article 30 (the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion).
As in 2019, the European Committee of Social Rights, wishing to focus its monitoring and to alleviate the reporting burden of States, invites States Parties to limit the report to replies to specific and targeted questions for each of the above-mentioned articles of the Charter, without prejudice to responding to issues still pending from previous reporting cycles.
This is a result of the work carried out by the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) to identify good practices through a report with a view to improving the implementation of social rights in Europe and the proposals made by the European Committee of Social Rights which aim to render the reporting procedure under the European Social Charter more effective and targeted.
As the questions were addressed to states later than usual, the European Committee of Social Rights invites countries to submit their reports by 31 December 2020 (instead of end of October). Similarly, the Committee extends the period for submission of comments on national reports by trade unions, employers’ organisations and non-governmental organisations until 30 June 2021 (instead of the usual 30 April deadline).
More information on the relationship between EU law and the European Social Charter
Tél. +33 (0)3 90 21 49 61
www.coe.int/socialcharter
