ABSTRACT
Chapman proposes a complaint-based review process for ascertaining violations of ICESCR rights comparable with monitoring systems operating in many international civil and political rights instruments.105 There are many salient grounds for reorienting the supervisory method, including the insufficient and inadequate nature of State reports, lack of co-operation from States, and the inherently circumscribed vigour of the Committee’s supervisory power exercised on the basis of a ‘constructive dialogue’ with a State suspected of infringing the rights of its citizens. The ‘violation approach’ may gain valuable insight from the practices of the UN and its affiliated organs, including the ILO’s procedure on trade union rights and working conditions, the procedure of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization for dealing with rights concerning education, science and culture, as well as the procedures of the Economic and Social Council Resolution 1503 (1970).106 The Optional Protocol to the CEDAW, which was adopted in 1999, envisages the right of individuals and groups of individuals to submit to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women a complaint of a violation of the rights enumerated in the CEDAW, which covers substantial elements of economic, social and cultural rights.107 Economic, social and cultural rights are already under judicial scrutiny in the revised ESC.
