Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in Armed Conflict

Abstract This book addresses the international legal obligation to protect economic, social, and cultural human rights in times of armed conflict and other situations of armed violence. These rights provide guarantees to individuals of their fundamental rights to work, to an adequate standard of living (food, water, housing), to education, and to health. Armed violence can take many forms, from civil unrest to armed conflict situations, and in all such cases the protection of ESC rights is sorely challenged. By looking at the specific human rights treaty provisions, the book seeks to identify their specific modalities of application and discusses how far ESC rights obligations can be affected by practical and legal challenges to their implementation. It is argued that, notwithstanding the persistent dichotomy between civil and political and ESC rights which pervades both literature and practice, those rights can accommodate a far more complex and nuanced interpretation. The issues covered include: the normative content of ESC rights; the legal conditions to limit ESC rights on security grounds, including the use of force; the extraterritorial applicability of international human rights treaties setting out ESC rights; the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law; and the obligations of non-state actors under human rights law and their particular relevance to the protection of ESC rights. The focus is on the particular challenges raised by the application and implementation of ESC rights in armed conflict, and a number of solutions are offered.