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.
Indietro
States Parties to the European Social Charter are invited to report on the rights of children, families and migrants by 31 December 2022
The European Committee of Social Rights transmitted, in the framework of the reporting procedure, the questions to States Parties of the Revised European Social Charter and the 1961 Charter relating to the provisions belonging to the thematic group 4 “children, families and migrants”. The following provisions are concerned:
the right of children and young persons to protection (Article 7);
the right of employed women to protection of maternity (Article 8);
the right of the family to social, legal and economic protection (Article 16);
the right of children and young persons to social, legal and economic protection (Article 17);
the right of migrant workers and their families to protection and assistance (Article 19);
the right of workers with family responsibilities to equal opportunity and treatment (Article 27)
the right to housing (Article 31).
States having accepted the collective complaints procedure from Group A are invited to submit a simplified report on the follow-up given in collective complaints where the ECSR has found a violation. These states are France, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Ireland, Finland.
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.
States parties are invited to submit their national reports by 31 December 2022. Consequently, third party organisations such as trade unions, employers’ organisations, NGOs, national human rights institutions and national equality bodies can submit additional information to the European Committee of Social Rights by 30 June 2023.
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
