Appendix E: ESCR-Net Planning Meeting: Participant Case Study Presentations
October 5-6, 2000
The Ford Foundation
CDES (Chris Jochnick)
Oil in the Amazon project.
First began using a tradition civil & political rights approach then spent time building coalition with local groups. Focused on building local language of ESR. 1995 Amazon network established. Finding that ESCR advocacy is very resource intensive and must focus on very small, localized, problems and areas to be effective. So how can one project inspire other communities? Communities face multiplicity of issues; CESCR, other multilateral organizations are irrelevant to local groups, and it’s difficult to make ESCR approach relevant. Maintaining a balance of power between actors is more difficult with ESCR than CPR. While Texaco lawsuit is still in courts after seven years, process of filing lawsuit itself has been effective organizing tool, and has raised profile of ESCR cause.
CERA (Bruce Porter)
Brought a case to Supreme Court of Canada concerning recent social welfare cuts.
The Canadian Charter of Rights does include ESCR. Also took case to the UN, obtained comments from UN, CESCR, and Human Rights Commission. Their response was “positive obligations are necessary.” One challenge is the lack of critical mass in terms of role of courts intervening in the protection of ESCR. Courts are reluctant to engage in what they consider to be a “political” arena. There is a need for judges to hear from respected, mainstream, human rights groups, churches, and UN bodies. It’s difficult to get UN treaty-monitoring bodies to pay attention to treaty violations in Canada. Canadian Supreme Court engages in a lot of international judicial education around human rights, so it should protect these rights within Canada, but this is not always the case. Canadian government convened a meeting regarding ESCR, but did not invite advocacy organizations like CERA.
CESR (Sarah Zaidi)
U.S. Worker’s Rights Project
Worked with garment workers, domestic workers, and taxi drivers. Found that many Chinese sweatshop workers in New York City previously worked in similar conditions in China. Many new sweatshops are not unionized, and taxi drivers are not unionized. Basic organizing is a big obstacle. Unions are not in communication with many workers. Many are U.S. citizens – not necessarily undocumented. Time issues: most taxi drivers work seven days a week so they don’t have time to engage in organizing activities. But people know when their rights are being violated. Workers do not receive compensation funds when factories are moved overseas – money often goes to unions. One positive outcome of project is international solidarity; there have been responses to the study from people outside the U.S.
CELS (Victor Abramovich)
First challenge was to demonstrate the effectiveness of legal remedies in enforcing ESCR. Won first case: demanding that the government produce a vaccine for a local epidemic. Subsequent case involved government agency’s failure to deliver seeds to farmers in need. Case could not be presented before domestic courts, so instead, was taken to the World Bank Inspection Panel as a violation of a loan agreement between the World Bank and Argentina. Initially, information about the loan agreement was easy to obtain, but once CELS began pressuring government by appealing to the World Bank, the information became difficult to obtain. So access to information is crucial to effective ESCR advocacy. Also finding that successful litigation needs support of broader social movements and there are differences from CPR litigation, including 1) ESCR cases usually have many victims, and there is a lack of trust in legal remedies by grassroots.
COHRE (Leilani Farha)
Project: Women’s housing rights program. Started a list-serve on women’s housing rights. Women are particularly affected by housing rights violations. Finding that convincing others (i.e. other ESCR advocates, women’s rights organizations, housing rights organizations, human rights groups) of the importance of women’s ESCR is a challenge. The ESCR framework is not shared by other organizations. The substantive content of ESC rights are different for women than for men. For example, is domestic violence a violation of a women’s right to housing -- a form of forced eviction? The gender “neutrality” of standards setting is actually an obstacle to effective ESCR claims by women. There is a need to look not just at discrimination in the application of rights, but also at the gendered content of ESCR.
Food First (Anuradha Mittal)
At the 1996 World Food Summit, the U.S. representative to summit refused to support the right to food, stating that this would mean that welfare reform would violate the human right to food. Food First looking at human rights implications of increasing hunger and poverty in U.S. Held congressional hearing on issues. Judicial strategy is only useful when combined with a broad-based social movement. U.S. can learn from other countries; a need to reframe issues as universal problems, not ones that are limited to the South. There is a question of who will be leaders and spokespersons. Need to build bridges between think tanks and grassroots. In 1997, Food First had a domestic campaign (congressional hearing, bus tour, ads in NY Times), now how do we sustain it? What do we do after 50th anniversary of UDHR?
KWRU (Joy Butts)
Project: Kensington Welfare Rights Union is a 9-year-old organization based in Philadelphia founded by 6 poor women. KWRU uses an economic human rights model to advocate for change. Kensington Welfare Rights Union lobbied local, state, federal levels against welfare reform and establishment of TANF 5-year limit on benefits. Established Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign in 1998. This year, KWRU will host the Poor People’s World Summit to End Poverty. An upcoming battle is the reauthorization of the TANF bill in 2002. KWRU wants to establish information and communication infrastructure between poor people. KWRU currently is confronting a lack of access to mainstream media.
Legal Resources Center (Geoff Budlender)
Project: using constitutional strategies to address high levels of poverty and inequality in South Africa. ESCR are incorporated into the South African Constitution, but there are clearly still violations of ESCR.
- strategies for impact litigation.
- how to get courts to engage ESCR.
- designing effective remedies that courts can apply to governments
- how to use litigation to mobilize those who are affected.
Positive developments: In a recent right-to-housing case, the judge’s ruling mentions the indivisibility of rights, that all rights derive from the right to dignity, and made references to U.N. general comments regarding ESCR. Litigators also cited ESCR cases in India and Canada in their arguments. Therefore, designing work that will help advocates in other countries is crucial.
SERAC (Felix Morka)
Project: Making the connection between military rule and the exclusion of ordinary people. Began with housing rights and military evictions. There was a World Bank project that would displace large numbers of people. Engaged in community education on rights to housing and land. Spent time identifying allies and building allies. A question arose of how to move ESCR into the mainstream.
