“We are an essential part of the international human rights complaints system”, said Aoife Nolan, President of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Social Rights, in a speech delivered on Thursday 6 July at the opening of the conference organised to mark the 25th anniversary of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter, which came into force on 1 July 1998.
The Social Charter itself was adopted in 1961, to complement the European Convention on Human Rights, which is largely devoted to civil and political rights.
Dedicated more specifically to the collective complaints procedure accessible to the social partners and non-governmental organisations, the Additional Protocol to the Social Charter is “without equal in Europe”, Aoife Nolan told EUROPE a few hours before the conference. It enables “systemic” cases of violation of fundamental social rights such as housing, health, education, employment, protection against poverty, etc. to be dealt with rapidly.
By way of example, Ms Nolan cites the ban on the corporal punishment of children or, as recently as April 2023, the decision of the Committee of Social Rights noting and condemning serious violations of the rights of disabled people in France.
“This Council of Europe decision was widely covered by the media”, Ms Nolan points out, and “at the National Conference on Disability, held a few days later in Paris, organisations used it to call for a new paradigm based on the rights of people with disabilities. This is the most recent example of our ability to drive change”.
These two examples were also cited by Bjørn Berge, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, who also mentioned the removal of homophobic language from school curricula in several countries and progress in equal pay for men and women.
“Experience shows that trade unions and civil society organisations only lodge complaints after serious consideration - exactly as intended”, he added.
Eamon Gilmore, EU Special Representative for Human Rights, stressed that key instruments such as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Pillar of Social Rights were inspired by the Social Charter.
“In addition”, he added, “any EU action under the social policy chapter of the EU Treaties must take account of the fundamental social rights guaranteed by the Social Charter”.
While the European Social Charter has been ratified by 42 of the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe - only Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland have not done so - its additional protocol on collective bargaining has only been adopted by 16 Council of Europe Member States, 15 of which are also members of the European Union, namely Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden (the 16th non-EU Member State is Norway).
Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, therefore called for “all Council of Europe Member States to join” “as soon as possible”, because it is high time that Europe created “a coherent space for the effective implementation of social rights”.
For Aoife Nolan, the declaration adopted at the end of the Council of Europe Summit held in Reykjavik last May is a positive signal in this respect.
“The Reykjavik Declaration is a very clear commitment to social rights”, she stressed.
“If we compare it with previous declarations, we can see that social rights are no longer mentioned in sub-sections or sub-paragraphs, but represent one of the key themes of the text”.
According to the President of the Social Rights Committee, the declaration should lead to “a strengthening of Member States’ commitment to social rights and their implementation”.
For this to happen, the promises made in Reykjavik will have to be followed by action. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)