Enhancing EU actions on economic, social and cultural rights within its human rights policy

Please note: Each EPRS Study is assigned a DOI (digital object identifier), which is a safe and long term way of ensuring a hyperlink to the full text of this report. However, when ESO creates this record, on occasion the DOI still has not been activated by the EU Bookshop. If you find the source url hyperlink does not work please use the alternative location hyperlink listed as a related url.Article 21 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) affirms that the EU’s external action should be guided by the principle of ‘the universality and indivisibility of human rights’. However, economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) have received less attention than their civil and political counterparts within this sphere of EU activity.

This study analyses the progress made by the EU in implementing its commitment to respect, protect and fulfil ESC rights in its external action, making specific reference to three such rights – namely the right to just and favourable conditions of work, the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to education.

This study also identifies structural obstacles that may be impeding the ability of the EU to promote these rights in an effective manner, and offers a set of concrete recommendations which aim to further enhance EU action in this regard.

This paper was requested by the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights(DROI).

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Study, February 2018: Enhancing EU actions on economic, social and cultural rights within its human rights policy http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/603838/EXPO_STU(2018)603838_EN.pdf

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