On June 26, 2018, CESR, Dejusticia, the Permanent Mission of Portugal to the UN and other international organizations present a side event on "Developing Practical Guidance on Maximum Available Resources" at the 38th session of the Human Rights Council (June 18th-July 6th, 2018) in Geneva.
An important qualification on the obligation of a State to take steps to progressively realize economic, social and cultural rights is that such steps should be taken to the "maximum of its available resources." There has been some elaboration of this norm, although practice in assessing it is still evolving and remains somewhat varied.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is advancing towards a more systematic approach to assessing the norm, to evaluate States more consistently and to make more concrete and actionable recommendations on how to advance rights-based economic policy.
To support the Committee, the Center for Economic and Social Rights and Dejusticia are supporting consultation among stakeholders to determine the type of guidance that could help facilitate such an approach.
The event provides an opportunity for States to share observations and reflect collectively on the key conceptual and practical challenges associated with the assessment of this norm, as well as some initial ideas for how to address them.
The format for the side event focuses on open discussion, rather than formal presentations, in order to encourage lively debate and collective exploration of a complex topic. To facilitate that, we have prepared a short discussion paper setting out key issues and questions that have been raised in our consultations to date. Remarks from participants on the issues raised in the paper are strongly encouraged.
Full details on the event are below. For further information please contact Allison Corkery at acorkery@cesr.org.
