On 23 November 2007, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment 19 on the Right to Social Security under article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
A General Comment is an authoritative statement by a treaty body of the content and application of a particular right and may be relevant both to the interpretation and application of international and domestic law and policy.
The General Comment adopts a number of recommendations and observations made by the Human Rights Law Resource Centre in our submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of June 2006 in relation to their Draft General Comment on the Right to Social Security under article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The Centre’s submission considered the following aspects of the right to social security:
- availability;
- adequacy;
- non-discrimination;
- the rights of non-citizens;
- conditionality; and
- minimum thresholds.
The Committee’s final General Comment directly incorporates 3 specific recommendations/observations from the Centre’s submission, namely that:
- ‘Social security, through its redistributive character, plays an important role in poverty reduction and alleviation, preventing social exclusion and in promoting social inclusion.’ – GC para 3, HRLRC paras 1.1-1.2
- ‘The right to social security includes the right not to be subject to arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions with existing social security coverage, whether obtained publicly or privately, as well as the right to equal enjoyment of adequate protection from social risks and contingencies.’ – GC para 9, HRLRC para 6.1
- Qualifying conditions for benefits must be reasonable, proportionate and transparent. The withdrawal, reduction or suspension of benefits should be circumscribed, based on grounds that are reasonable, subject to due process, and be provided for in national law.’ – GC para 24, HRLRC paras 6.1-6.4
