CESR Reports
CESR Letters, Op-Eds, Presentations
For recent work in Ecuador, visit CDES at www.cdes.org.ec
Latin America provides a strong foundation for economic and social rights work given its long history of human rights activism, the flourishing of popular movements there, and the fact that economic policies in the region have created some of the most inequitable societies in the world. Despite new political openness in recent years, regional development continues to exclude large parts of the population and is increasingly dictated by international financial institutions and foreign corporations.
CESR’s focus in Latin America has been two-fold: first, challenging development projects in the Amazon for their lack of accountability and community participation, and second, promoting greater awareness and use of economic and social rights among civil society and governments throughout Latin America.
Development policies in the Amazon have had devastating impacts on the health and welfare of local communities as well as the environment. In 1993, CESR organized a team of scientists which produced the first substantive proof that communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon were being systematically exposed to toxic wastes dumped by oil companies. Based on these findings, CESR issued a report, Rights Violations in the Ecuadorian Amazon: The Human Consequences of Oil Development [pdf, 308 kb], that charged the government of Ecuador and US oil companies with violating the rights to health and a healthy environment. This report strengthened local efforts to confront irresponsible oil development by providing two critical elements: an international human rights framework and credible scientific evidence of violations.
CESR has since collaborated with environmental and indigenous groups to demand greater transparency and public participation in development processes. CESR has also worked with members of the Ecuadorian Congress to ensure stronger environmental and social regulations.
To help make human rights a central feature of the national debate over development priorities, CESR has also:
- prepared and disseminated numerous publications on economic and social rights, including legal reports and popular education materials;
- launched a national information campaign on economic and social rights with local human rights groups;
- helped establish a community-based network to monitor development and human rights issues in coordination with national and international NGOs;
- co-hosted community workshops on key issues such as negotiating with oil companies;
- organized a series of seminars with a group of activists and academics to prepare a submission on rights violations to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
- co-organized investigations of oil development practices with Congressional oversight committees; and
- conducted lectures and public presentations to raise awareness about economic and social rights at the academic and professional levels.
Advocacy by Country
CESR Reports
CESR Fact Sheets
CESR Press Releases
CESR Legal Submissions
CESR Letters, Op-Eds,and Presentations
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Education
Mission Report [pdf 122.8 kb]
Despite the fact that the United States is the world's richest country in aggregate terms, it lags behind many other nations in fulfilling the needs of all of its citizens: 20% of children under the age of five live in poverty - the highest child poverty rate of any fully industrialized nation; 44 million people lack health insurance; between 40 and 44 million people are functionally illiterate; and 28 million people face food insecurity.
The United States stands virtually alone in the world as an opponent of economic and social rights. The Second Bill of Rights proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt's in 1944 focused on guarantees of work, adequate housing and income, medical care and education, protection from economic fears of old age, sickness, injuries, and unemployment, and a market free from unfair competition and domination of monopolies was to serve as basis of economic security. While FDR's vision was never integrated into American domestic policy it did serve to inspire inspire the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration under the leadership of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.
American administrations -- regardless of the broad global consensus to the contrary -- regularly take the position that economic and social rights are merely “aspirational,” unenforceable and best approached as a policy matter leaving broad latitude to governments to provide or deny such rights depending on the political context of the moment. On the domestic level, the United States provides no federal constitutional guarantees for economic and social rights, and has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Instead, American governments over the last two decades have steadily eroded domestic legislative protections and international legal standards for economic and social rights, which are particularly vulnerable to regression in the current political and economic environment.
CESR's work in the United States seeks to create and strengthen American accountability for economic and social rights. We aim towards building a human rights culture in the United States and in bringing American domestic policies into compliance with international standards. Our purpose is to advocate for incorporating the full range of human rights into the US domestic legal system and popular American culture. Recognition of economic and social rights in the American public and policy arena will strengthen government accountability regardless of political shifts. For example, American legal, political and popular cultural recognition of political and civil rights protected the core of the 1964 Civil Rights Act against sustained concerted political and judicial attacks during the 1980’s and 1990’s.
width="300" />
