The Economic, Social and Cultural Covenant: Articles 11 to 15

In one line

Article 11 protects an adequate standard of living and names freedom from hunger a fundamental right, article 12 the highest attainable standard of health, articles 13 and 14 education with a ladder of duties and a two-year planning deadline, and article 15 cultural life, science and authorship.

Article 11: standard of living and freedom from hunger

11(1): the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, with appropriate steps to be taken, recognising the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

11(2): recognising the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, States shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed to:

(a) improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition, and by developing or reforming agrarian systems so as to achieve the most efficient development and utilisation of natural resources; and

(b) taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.

Four points, and they are the most examinable in this block.

"The fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger" is the only right in either Covenant given the adjective fundamental, and the Committee treats it as the core of article 11 that a State must meet whatever its resources.

11(2) says "shall take", not "shall take steps towards", which is stronger than the article 2(1) formula and is the textual basis for the minimum core.

Agrarian reform appears in a human rights treaty, in 11(2)(a), which is unusual and is a trace of the drafting influence of States for whom land reform was the central social question.

And 11(2)(b) is an obligation about the world food supply, not about a State's own territory, which makes it one of the few provisions in either Covenant that looks like a third generation duty.

Housing is named in 11(1) and nowhere developed, and the whole law of forced eviction has been built on those two words by the Committee, which has held that evictions carried out without legal protection and due process are prima facie incompatible with the Covenant. India's route to the same result is article 21, through the shelter and livelihood cases.

Article 12: health

12(1): the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

12(2): the steps shall include those necessary for: