The Council of Europe is convinced of the need to improve access to social rights as a key means of combating poverty and social exclusion and in promoting social cohesion. The report on access to social rights in Europe is mainly based on the results of the activities related to access to employment, social protection and housing, as well as relevant work carried out within the Council of Europe in the fields of health and education. This report analyses the obstacles impeding access to different social rights within and across a range of fields. It also gives examples of how obstacles are being overcome, examines integrated measures implemented in the member states of the Council of Europe and identifies the principles on which measures to improve access to social rights should be based. Finally, the report develops cross-sectoral policy guidelines aimed at facilitating access to social rights.

B. Rules of Procedure

This thoroughly revised edition of a standard work on the European Social Charter of 1961 describes and analyses the amended Charter of 1996 and the Optional Protocol of 1995, with detailed attention to the jurisprudence of the independent Committee of Experts under those revised instruments. It also takes into account the substantial changes in the operation of the supervisory mechanism which have made the mechanism much more effective. The author's commentary proceeds in the broader context of international social and economic rights as expressed in the European Convention on Human Rights, European Union social law and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The first part of the book reviews the multi-level system of protection currently operating in Europe and its constitutional implications. The Charter is analysed from a legal, political and practical standpoint. The activity of the European Parliament as a fundamental rights actor will also be examined, as well as the right to a fair trial and to effective judicial protection before and by the EU Courts. The second part of the volume addresses the impact of a binding Charter on specific areas of EU Law. The order in which the contributions have been set out reflects the structure of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union: free circulation of persons; the internal market; the area of freedom security and justice (civil and criminal aspects); social rights protection; environmental policy; enlargement; international trade and the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

This collection addresses the potential of the European Social Charter to promote and safeguard social rights in Europe. Drawing on the expertise of ETUI Transnational Trade Union Rights expert network members from across Europe, it provides a comprehensive commentary on these fundamental rights. Taking a two part approach, it offers an in-depth legal analysis of the European Social Charter as a new social constitution for Europe, investigating first the potential of the general legal frame in which the Charter is embedded. In a second phase a series of social rights are examined in light of the jurisprudence of the ECSR, to demonstrate the crucial but difficult role of the Charter's supervisory bodies to secure the respect and promotion of social rights at national level, bearing in mind the reciprocal influence of other international social rights instruments.

The collective complaints procedure was created in 1995 as an optional quasi-jurisdictional monitoring mechanism specific for the protection of social rights, within the framework of the Council of Europe treaty system of the European Social Charter. In recent years, the importance and use of this procedure has increased considerably, in the context of a number of serious economic and social crises which are impacting negatively on the effective enjoyment of social rights in Europe. This short monograph explores and clarifies the specific features, the potential and limits of the collective complaints procedure, intended as a sui generis instrument for the protection of social rights, in the light of its evolutive application by the European Committee of Social Rights (the monitoring body of the European Social Charter) and its real impact on the state and conditions of social rights in the European countries concerned.

This book develops principles of adjudication to facilitate accountability for violations of Economic and Social Rights. Economic and Social Rights engage with areas relating to social justice and their violation tends to impact on the most vulnerable members of society. Taking the UK as a case study, the book draws on international experience and comparative practice, including progressive reform at the devolved subnational level, that demonstrate the potential reach of Economic and Social Rights when the rights are given legal standing in domestic settings according to their status in international law. The work looks at different models of incorporation of rights into domestic law and sets out existing justiciability mechanisms for their enforcement as well as future models open to development. In so doing the book develops principles of adjudication drawn from deliberative democracy theory that help address some of the critiques of social rights adjudication. This book will have a global and cross-sectoral appeal to legal practitioners, the judiciary and the civil services, as well as to researchers, academics and students in the fields of human rights law, comparative constitutional law and deliberative democracy theory. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Now in its fourth edition, this well-respected textbook blends the theory of human rights with its context, debates and practice.

This authoritative commentary prepared by scholars from the Academic Network on the European Social Charter and Social Rights (ANESC) is intended for academic researchers studying social and economic rights in Europe and legal practitioners, civil society organisations, trade unions and state representatives engaging with the procedures of the European Committee of Social Rights. The text comprises contributions from a diverse group of experts, bringing together senior and young scholars from various countries and legal traditions, expertise in social and economic rights, coupled with a commitment to enhancing the European system for regulating these rights. The commentary consists of 106 chapters, organised into eight volumes on the substantive obligations of State Parties to the European Social Charter and the practice of the European Committee of Social Rights. Other chapters delve into the procedures that state representatives, international bodies and applicants must follow to engage with the Charter system. Volume 3, which encompasses Articles 11 to 19, examines critical ESC welfare rights for the general population and specific groups of people against the jurisprudence of the European Committee of Social Rights and other international standards.