ABSTRACT
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) is still, if not in its infancy, at least in its young age. Twenty-six years is not a very long span in the existence of a political institution or of a supervisory body. The evolutionary character of the CESCR is a singular and remarkable feature of this body that differentiated it from the majority of other quasi-jurisdictional supervisory mechanisms operating in the field of human rights. All the existing UN human rights committees were established either directly under a specific human rights treaty or by subsequent optional protocols added to them, and they are part of the international UN human rights supervisory machinery. A human rights body created by a resolution, however, was a true innovation, for which in 1986 no rules or precedents existed. Admittedly, certain rules were laid down in the ECOSOC resolution, which established the CESCR.
