GLOBAL INITIATIVE FOR ECONOMIC SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS

Our vision is of a world where the human rights framework reflects the real world experiences of all of us, effectively furthering social and economic justice and human dignity, and catalyzing change from the local to the global, and back to the local. To realize this vision, our role is one of catalyzing social change through leveraging of strategic spaces. This is work that we undertake in close partnership with local partners from around the world; what we like to call “making the UN work for the poor," although it also encompasses strategic spaces beyond the UN.

The mission of the GI-ESCR is to:

Strengthen the international human rights framework through creative standard setting, so that the framework reflects the experiences, needs and aspirations of marginalized individuals, groups and communities.

Partner with advocates, social movements and grassroots communities at national and local levels to more effectively claim and enforce ESC rights, including by engaging international mechanisms for local impact.

Contribute to the effective implementation of ESC rights, so that everyone is able to fully enjoy their ESC rights in practice, and are able to do so without discrimination and on the basis of equality.

Provide innovative tools to policy makers, development actors and others on the practical implementation and realization of ESC rights.

Enforce ESC rights through international, regional and national mechanisms and seek remedies for violations of these rights, with a focus on creating beneficial jurisprudence aimed at transformative change.

Engage networks of human rights, women's rights, environmental and development organizations and agencies to advance the sustainable enjoyment of ESC rights at both national and international levels.

The primary methodology of the GI-ESCR of achieving impact is advocacy, and we will deploy research, documentation, strategic litigation and other forms of legal advocacy, and field building through deep and dynamic partnerships.

Our methodology relies on key specific tactics to promote and advocate for ESC rights, including (but not necessarily limited to):

• Engaging with UN mechanisms and agencies, regional human rights mechanisms, States, human rights experts, partner organizations and others to promote ESC rights and highlight corresponding obligations;
• Preparing parallel reports on ESC rights issues to UN treaty bodies, highlighting specific violations and emerging issues;
• Advocating for the development of new standards relating to ESC rights, and contributing substantively to the development of such standards;
• Providing training and capacity building on ESC rights and related mechanisms;
• Convening strategic meetings and other events with partners to highlight, and/or develop joint strategies around key issues;
• Preparing and disseminating quality research, tools, guides, and other resources on ESC rights;
• Engaging in strategic litigation on ESC rights and providing legal support on ESC rights related cases.

The GI-ESCR has a depth of experience as well as deep networks and relationships which have resulted in it being a leader in the area of economic, social and cultural rights advocacy. We partner closely with sound networks, including ESCR-Net and the ETO Consortium, in order to connect with local actors and allied civil society organizations. Our office in Geneva in particular places us close to international human rights mechanisms that we have successfully utilized to support the local-level advocacy of ourselves and our partners.

From 2010 to 2016, GI-ESCR worked to push emerging issues to the fore, including the issues of extra-territorial human rights obligations (ETOs), women's rights to land and other productive resources, the human rights impact of privatization, among others. Key successes have included:

• Our work has led to increased recognition of ETOs under both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

• Our individual complaint against Bulgaria to prevent a forced eviction in Sofia was the first complaint of its kind before the UN Human Rights Committee. Following our intervention, the Human Rights Committee issued a landmark decision in which it issued a permanent injunction preventing the forced eviction of the community as well as the reestablishment of access to water. With this win the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has been opened as an additional avenue for the enforcement of certain aspects of social rights.

• In 2014, we filed the first Individual Complaint before the Human Rights Committee dealing with ETOs in the context of corporate accountability, requiring States to regulate trans-national corporations for activities abroad and provide access to accountability and remedies in the case of violations.

• We've played a leadership role within the ESCR-Net Strategic Litigation Working Group by undertaking cases dealing with forced evictions in Kenya, the right to water in Detroit, and with the first ever amicus curiae intervention under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

• On women's rights to land and other productive resources we have worked closely with local partners to achieve ground breaking pronouncements on this important issue related to women's equality and equity. Since we started, we have intervened on 27 countries and secured a range of progressive pronouncements which are now being used to strengthen local advocacy.

• We were invited by the Secretariat of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to assist in the drafting of the Committee's General Recommendation on the Rights of Rural Women.

• We successfully worked with partners for the adoption of African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Resolution 262 on Women's Right to Land and Productive Resources, and since that time have been building on this effort by working towards a new General Comment on women's rights to equality upon dissolution of marriage.

• Our work on the human rights impacts of privatization in education has been praised as a “game changer" by donors and partners, and our advocacy resulted in the first ever pronouncements critiquing the detrimental impacts of privatization of education, in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Morocco, Chile and Brazil, as well as the ETOs of the UK. This then resulted in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education.