Introduction: The Justiciability of ESC Rights and the Interdependence of All Fundamental Rights

Abstract

This special issue came about due to the interesting presentations given at a conference to celebrate the official launch of the International Commission of Jurist’s book, Courts and the Legal Enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Comparative Experiences of Justiciability, by Christian Courtis (hereinafter, ‘the ICJ book’). The publication of this book, with its thematic analysis of a rich compilation of national, regional and global jurisprudence on economic and social rights, marks an important phase in the development of theories on (the characteristics of) economic and social rights. Hence, the official launch of this seminal book at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam in April 2009 was considered to merit a conference on the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights. Some of the articles included in this special issue emerged from this conference, and some were commissioned by the editor (in consultation with Christian Courtis). All of them refer to the ICJ book (in different degrees of explicitness). The title of the ICJ book reveals its focus on the justiciability of economic, social and economic rights. However, it is important to realise that the justiciability issue is tied up with several other, allegedly typical characteristics of social and economic rights.

Keywords: Economic Social Cultural Rights, Justiciability