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The importance of regional human rights systems is taken for granted today, but this has not always been the case. The idea of regional systems for the protection of human rights was met with suspicion and apprehension before the United Nations was established and in its early years of existence, due largely to the fear that such systems would detract from the universality of human rights. Focusing on the three main regional human rights systems—Inter-American, African, and European—this chapter explores the ways in which regional human rights systems have strengthened and enriched the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC) rights. In doing so, it rebuts the assumption made by those opposed to regional systems who argued that such systems would institutionalize relativity and hence dilution of human rights. There is now ample evidence, discussed in this chapter, showing that regional systems provide an important space for mediating the multidirectional influence of human rights norms as we strive to make human rights meaningful and realizable in different social contexts. With respect to ESC rights, regional systems have evolved and tested various models of protecting these rights, accentuated certain aspects of these rights, developed various standards of measuring compliance or of judicially enforcing these rights, and expanded or improved the robustness of the enforcement mechanisms. Acknowledging this contribution does not mean that regional systems are perfect.
The importance of regional human rights systems is taken for granted today, but this has not always been the case. The idea of regional systems for the protection of human rights was met with suspicion and apprehension before the United Nations was established and in its early years of existence, due largely to the fear that such systems would detract from the universality of human rights. Focusing on the three main regional human rights systems—Inter-American, African, and European—this chapter explores the ways in which regional human rights systems have strengthened and enriched the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC) rights. In doing so, it rebuts the assumption made by those opposed to regional systems who argued that such systems would institutionalize relativity and hence dilution of human rights. There is now ample evidence, discussed in this chapter, showing that regional systems provide an important space for mediating the multidirectional influence of human rights norms as we strive to make human rights meaningful and realizable in different social contexts. With respect to ESC rights, regional systems have evolved and tested various models of protecting these rights, accentuated certain aspects of these rights, developed various standards of measuring compliance or of judicially enforcing these rights, and expanded or improved the robustness of the enforcement mechanisms. Acknowledging this contribution does not mean that regional systems are perfect.
The purpose of the article is to analyze doctrinal ideas about the nature of human rights, which promoted the idea of the principled unity of rights reflected in international legal provisions, that are strengthening the normative and institutional guarantees of judicial protection of social rights, as well as identifying problematic aspects of the justiciability of such rights is within the focus of the paper. The methodological basis of the research is the general scientific dialectical method of learning social phenomena in their interconnection and development. The formation of guarantees of social rights enshrined in international legal acts, the development of human rights ideology, legally expressed in the principle of the principle of unity of all rights, and judicial protection problematic are studied. It has been proved that the consequence of the international consensus that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, interrelated, and complementary was the shift of emphasis from discussions about the nature of rights to the types of correlative obligations of the state, aiming at strengthening the guarantees of social rights. It is noted that conventional understanding of the fundamentals of all rights integrates the issue of social rights into the discussions of human dignity, individual autonomy and freedom, which are traditional for civil and political rights. It is concluded that recognition of the principled unity and equal importance of rights transfers the discussion about justiciability of social rights from the presence or absence of sufficient grounds for judicial protection to proper and effective means of dispute resolution. It is stated that effectiveness of the national judiciary as an element of the system of guarantees depends on the ability to provide protection against the devaluation of social rights and the emasculation of their essential content by public regulatory decisions. It is also emphasized that judicious balancing of private and public interests in accordance with correlative positive obligations supports confidence in the judiciary in particular and the state in general.
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