Human Rights Protections for Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Groups: The Contributions of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Abstract

Recognition of the need to protect the rights and interests of the vulnerable and disadvantaged has been a recurrent theme in the work of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). This article reviews the work of the CESCR to ascertain whether the Committee has had a clear-cut framework or criteria to determine which individuals or groups should be considered vulnerable and disadvantaged and what measures are required to protect their human rights. The first section reviews the Committee's reporting guidelines. The second analyzes the treatment of vulnerability in the Committee's general comments and statements. The third evaluates how the CESCR has approached the subject of vulnerability in its concluding comments for state party reports reviewed between 1997 and 2009. The fourth concludes that despite the importance the CESCR accords to the subject of vulnerability, it does not offer a clear-cut conception or definition of vulnerability or related terminology. Nor does it provide criteria for identifying which individuals or groups qualify as vulnerable or disadvantaged in general or in specific contexts. Moreover, the CESCR is often vague about what protecting and improving the status of the vulnerable and disadvantaged entails. Therefore the paper recommends that the CESCR address vulnerability in a more conceptually robust and integrated fashion through issuing a general comment or a statement on the topic.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink: love, sex and gay men with intellectual disabilities – a helping hand or a human right?

“…However, both in theory and in practice it is difficult to find examples of this happening in relation to gay men with ID. Chapman & Carbonetti () argue that while human rights law sets out ‘minimum conditions for a dignified life’ in the form of rights and entitlements, attention and focus has been on the impact of non‐compliance or violation of rights and much less on what rights amount to or constitute and how they can be enjoyed.…”

Prevention of pesticide suicides and the right to life: The intersection of human rights and public health priorities

“…A wide range of factors put farmers and agricultural/rural communities in the situation of vulnerability, including: poverty; lack of education and information about harms associated with pesticides use; lack of social, health, and community services; gender inequality; domestic violence; dowry issues; long distance to urban areas where more services are available (Chapman and Carbonetti 2011).…”

La vulnerabilidad como categoría en construcción en la jurisprudencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos: límites y potencialidad

“…Sin embargo, es necesario considerar las situaciones contextuales y específicas que dan lugar a la vulneración efectiva de derechos individuales y colectivos. Raza, género, religión, sexualidad, edad y (dis)capacidad 9 han sido identificados como indicadores de vulnerabilidad (Chapman y Carbonetti, 2011). Sin embargo, al asumir estas características como «dadas» y «naturales», se ignoran los procesos de construcción de estas estructuras sociales que definen la posición individual.…”