October 2005
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157 Reads
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11 Citations
SSRN Electronic Journal
Since 1961 the European Social Charter (ESC) has been the flagship of international instruments dealing with social rights broadly defined. It constitutes a benchmark against which other international standards and supervisory arrangements in this field have come to be judged. This paper identifies a range of initiatives designed to make the Charter's supervisory arrangements more effective. It consists of four parts: (i) situating the ESC within the overall European human rights regime; (ii) a comparison with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; (iii) an examination of the ESC's strengths and weaknesses as demonstrated by a case study of Italy; and (iv) specific recommendations for enhancing effectiveness.