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Re-examining States’ External Obligations to Implement Economic and Social Rights of Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

Michael Wabwile
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International law on the protection and promotion of social and economic rights of the child binds states parties to respect, protect and secure these rights both in their own territories as well as to contribute to the programmes for such fulfilment in other countries in a strategy aiming at global implementation of these rights. This paper explores the legal basis for states‘ external obligations to support fulfilment of social and economic rights. It surveys inter alia the relevant treaty texts, explanatory resolutions of the UN General Assembly and statements in reports submitted by states parties to the UN monitoring committees, and argues that recent state practice and interpretation of human rights obligations confirms the extraterritorial obligations to support fulfilment of these rights. Since these are obligations to fulfil the rights of human beings in other countries rather than obligations to third states, they can be referred to as ‘diagonal obligations‘ to distinguish them from inter-state horizontal responsibility.

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Research Article
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Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 407 - 449
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Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2009 

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153. Frequent border skirmishes between the less developed Horn of Africa states of Ethiopia and Eritrea are a case in point. A United Nations peacekeeping force posts updates on troop movements along the borders of the two countries on its site: UN News Centre online: http://www.un.org/apps/news/.

154. Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/22 Human Rights and Unilateral Coercive measures UN Doc. E/2002/23-E/CN.4/2002/200: ‘The Commission on Human Rights, rejects the application of such measures as tools for political or economic Pressure against any country, particularly against developing countries, because of their negative effects on the realization of all human rights of vast sectors of their populations, inter alia children, women, the elderly, disabled and ill people.’ Para. 3.

155. ‘Deadly toxic waste dumping in Côte d’Ivoire clearly a crime—UN environmental agency’ online: http://www.un.org/apps/news/. ‘“Toxic” pigs cull in Ivory Coast’ BBC News online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6134998.stm.

156. Such omission by the Netherlands, which has ratified the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal 1989, constitutes a violation of international environmental law, but the outrage of causing such needless death and destroying the fragile health of tens of thousands of hapless victims is a more morally compelling case for protection.

157. For an extended analysis of this argument, see McCorquodale, R. & Simons, Penelope, ‘Responsibility Beyond Borders: State Responsibility for Extraterritorial Violations by Corporations of International Human Rights Law’ (2007) 70 Mod. L. Rev. 598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

158. Transparency International (2005) Annual Report at 7 Google Scholar. online: www.transparency.org.

159. The Convention came in force on 14th December 2005. For a critical examination: Webb, P., ‘The United Nations Convention Against Corruption: Global Achievement or Missed Opportunity?’ (2005) 8 J. Int’l Economic L. 191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

160. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption, in Report of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Negotiation of a Convention Against Corruption on the work of its first to seventh sessions, G A. Res. 58/4, UN. GAOR, 58th Sess., 50th & 51st plen. mtgs., Annex, Agenda Item 108, U.N. Doc. A/58/422 (2003), Art. 14. Even without the Convention, it is a general principle of law that theft is a crime and most legal systems have legislation to forbid and punish offenders. Just like the internal obligations to protect, the external obligations to protect can be performed through application of domestic legislation.

161. This is an extension of Henry Shue’s thesis to the international plane: Shue, supra note 149 at 60-64.

162. See A. Glenn Mower, Jr., supra note 24.

163. Mower observed that developing countries as a group have enough latent resource reserves to provide a better life and brighter prospects for their people. However, such resources especially agricultural and mineral resources are underdeveloped below the level necessary for an adequate standard of life and/or even where they are developed, they are diverted within a world market system on terms that are not sufficiently favourable to the developing world.

164. Alston, Philip, ‘Revitalising United Nations work on Human rights and development’ (1992) 18 Melbourne U. L. Rev. 216.Google Scholar

165. Declaration on the Right to Development UN General Assembly Declaration, UN doc. A/41/53, Annex 41. Art. 4 states as follows: 1. States have the duty to take steps, individually and collectively, to formulate international development policies with a view to facilitating the full realization of the right to development. 2. Sustained action is required to promote more rapid development of developing countries. As a complement to the efforts of developing countries, effective international co-operation is essential in providing these countries with appropriate means and facilities to foster their comprehensive development.

166. This point has been discussed in section 1.4.2, above.

167. Sachs, Jeffery, Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals: Report of the UN Secretary General (London: Earthscan, 2005).Google Scholar

168. Commission for Africa, Our Common Interest: The Report of ‘the Africa Commission. (London: Commission for Africa, 2005)Google Scholar. See also Maxwell, Simon, ‘Exhilarating, Exhausting, Intriguing: The Report of the Africa Commission’ (2005) 23 Development Pol’y Rev. 483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

169. Mary Dowell-Jones, supra note 23 at 189.

170. Charter of the United Nations 1945, Arts. 1(3), 55, 56.Google Scholar

171. Wouter Vandenhole, supra note 124 at 23, 24.

172. Fons Coomans, supra note 38 at 199.

173. Magdalena Sepulveda, supra note 121 at 374.

174. See Miller, David, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

175. Abbott, Kenneth & Snidal, Duncan, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’ (2000) 54 Int’l Organization 421 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abbott, Kenneth & Snidal, Duncan, ‘Pathways to International Cooperation’ in Benvenisti, E. & Hirsch, M., eds., The Impact of International Law on International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) at 50.Google Scholar

176. Abbott & Snidal, ibid. at 421.

177. Ibid. at 447.

177. Ibid.