Interview to Maria Virginia B.Gomes – Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

“Respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights have supremacy over all other national and international concerns”

- How does the Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights evaluate the current situation? What are the main challenges to face in 2010?

-The Committee is a supervisory body composed of independent experts in charge of monitoring the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. From the experience gathered in monitoring the reports of States parties on the implementation of the Covenant, in my personal perspective, since poverty is a violation of human rights, the greatest challenge for 2010 is for States to carry out policies to counteract the adverse effects of the global crisis that has deepened the poverty of traditionally discriminated and disadvantaged persons and groups and rendered new groups vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion particularly due to unemployment and inadequate social protection. Ensuring human rights implies not only outcomes, but also the process through the meaningful participation of the rights holders and this is a pre-requisite for every country.

-What are the Committee’s strategies to deal with the reduction of the economic, social and cultural rights –health, education, etc- that we are observing?

-The Committee has been paying great attention to issues of decentralisation and privatisation of basic services in the field of health, education and social protection. While compliance with human rights does not call for any one particular set of policies, it is nonetheless true that people who have been economically and socially excluded from benefiting from national development and progress should be at the centre of such policies. Privatisation, for example of health services, has almost always led to lack of access for people who are at the fringes of society and cannot afford to pay user fees. Privatisation of pension schemes has left public social security systems underfunded and had a negative impact on pensions of low paid workers.

Recommendations of the Committee to Sates parties have consistently referred to the need to guarantee equal access to basic goods and services for all, in particular for the most disadvantaged and marginalised.

- Non-nationals is one of those groups of disadvantaged and marginalized individuals. What are the Committee’s proposals in relation with the reduction of their economic, social and cultural rights?
-This guarantee applies also to non-nationals, since the Covenant covers everyone living under the jurisdiction of the State party and the substantive rights include the reference to “everyone”. Therefore, in our General Comments on the interpretation of Covenant rights we have repeatedly included references to non-nationals. For example, General Comment 19, on the right to social security, includes migrant workers, refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons under the broad designation of non-nationals. Also in its General Comment 20, on non-discrimination and economic, social and cultural rights, the Committee, in its interpretation of “other status” referred to in Article 2.2. of the Covenant, has included nationality as a ground for discrimination.

What specific policies does the Committee set out to fight against the world food crisis?

-The right to food is part of the right to an adequate standard of living (Article 11 of the Covenant). In our General Comment on the right to food and, more recently, in the Statement on the World Food Crisis, we have underscored that the human right to adequate food and freedom from hunger is of paramount importance for the enjoyment of all other rights, including the right to life and that all State parties are obliged to ensure for everyone within their jurisdiction physical and economic access to the minimum essential food, which is sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe. States need to take urgent action,  individually and through international assistance, to ensure freedom from hunger through the provision and distribution of emergency humanitarian aid without discrimination but they should also address the structural causes at the national and international levels, including by revising the global trade regime under the WTO to ensure that global agricultural trade rules promote, rather than undermine, the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger, especially in developing and net food-importing countries; ensuring that strategies to combat global climate change do not negatively affect the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger; and introducing and applying human rights principles by undertaking ex ante impact assessments of financial, trade and development policies, at both the national and international levels.

-¿What means are available for the Committee to face the situation of countries as Haití, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Suazilandia, Mozambique, and as many, plunged into poverty and non-democratic governments, whom frecuently see how their natural resources are plundered?

-As a supervisory body, the Committee does not have decision making powers, but rather the responsibility to make recommendations and suggestions to States parties, in its concluding observations, at the end of the reporting cycle. In relation to all countries, irrespective of the stage of their economic and social development, and on a case to case basis, the Committee underscores positive aspects in national policies but also difficulties and failures in the implementation of the Covenant and makes the corresponding suggestions, having in mind, above all, the marginalised and disadvantaged persons and groups.

It is particularly important for the governments of all States parties to implement their core obligations, in other words, the obligations that guarantee the enjoyment of the minimum essential level of each of the rights enshrined in the Covenant for all.  Issues like the adverse effects of adaptation and mitigation measures derived from climate change on the rights of indigenous populations; the violation of economic, social and cultural rights in mega-development projects and special economic zones; destruction and misappropriation of natural resources; and, land grabbing, among others, are taken up in the dialogue with States parties and later included in the concluding observations. 

- Which is considered the role of civil society and private institutions in the search of solutions in the long term?

-Respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights have supremacy over all other national and international concerns, which means all institutions, whether public or private, hold differentiated responsibilities in this regard. The State is the final guarantor of the enjoyment of human rights by those living under its jurisdiction, but civil society, through NGO’s and grassroots organisations, has a very important role to play in service delivery and evaluation, in advocacy and lobbying, in training and awareness raising and in detecting violations of human rights. The private sector should extend and reinforce its social responsibilities, ensuring respect for workers’ rights and corporate social investment. International financial organisations also need to take into account human rights in their lending policies, credit agreements, structural adjustment programmes and similar projects