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COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS HOLDS A DAY OF GENERAL DISCUSSION ON THE RIGHT TO WORK
24 November 2003
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24.11.03
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights today held a day of general discussion on the right to work with the aim of elaborating a general comment pertaining to article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Article 6 of the Covenant stipulates that “the States parties to the Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work, which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard his rights”.
Committee Chairperson Virginia Bonoan-Dandan said that the Committee had so far adopted 15 general comments on various articles of the International Covenant. The thematic issues of the general comments were related to economic, social and cultural rights such as the rights to housing, education, health and water. The Committee would continue adopting general comments on specific provisions of the Covenant in order to further clarify the provisions.
Committee Expert Philippe Texier presented a draft general comment on the right to work relating to article 6 of the Covenant, which was also a text of reference during the debate. The 56-paragraph document should be adopted during the Committee’s next session in May 2004, as General Comment No.17. The Committee will also adopt a general comment on article 3 on the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of economic, social cultural rights set forth in the Covenant, which will be No. 16.
During the discussion, the notion of globalization and its effect on the right to work was highlighted. Many speakers were of the view that the right to work should be accompanied by the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work and the need for decent work. The issue of discrimination in work, particularly the lack of special protection measures for women, was stressed with regard to the rights of women.
Taking part in the discussion were Philippe Texier, Committee Expert; Wataru Iwamoto, Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education Sector, UNESCO; Richard Siegel, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada; Vassil Mrachkov, Former Rapporteur and Vice Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Professor, Institute of Legal Sciences, Sofia; Akmal Saidov, Professor, Director of the National Human Rights Centre of Uzbekistan; Olga Krylova, Centre of Social and Labour Rights, Moscow; Janek Kuczkiewcz, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Director, Department of Trade Unions Rights, Brussels; Shanthi Dairiam, Executive Director of IWRAW-Asia Pacific, Women’s Economic Equality Project; Constance Thomas, International Labour Office; and Machfeld Inge van Dooren, Amersfoorst, the Netherlands. Other Committee Experts also participated in the debate.
At each of its sessions, the Committee devotes one day to a general discussion of a particular right or of a particular aspect of the Covenant, which has been acceded to by 148 States.
The next public meeting of the Committee will take place at 10 a.m. on Friday, 28 November, when the Experts will finalize their three-week autumn session and issue their conclusions and recommendations on the country reports which they have considered this session.
Discussion
PHILIPPE TEXIER, Committee Expert, said that the International Labour Office (ILO) had greatly contributed to his work concerning article 6 of the Covenant on the right to work. He also cited the names of other individual experts who had contributed to his work.
He said that the drafting of a general comment was a lengthy process that required the involvement of all members of the Committee and other outside expertise. Since the birth of the Committee, the ILO had been providing input to the work of the Committee on various issues.
There could be no right to work if it was not accompanied by a decent salary, Mr. Texier said. The issue of formal and informal work was also a thorny subject as millions of people were engaged in informal work that was not adequately remunerated.
It was hoped that the Committee would adopt the general comment on the right to work in May 2004. Once the comment was adopted, the Committee would continue to deal with articles 7 and 8 of the Covenant on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work, and the right of everyone to form trade unions and to join the trade union of his or her choice.
WATARU IWAMOTO, Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said UNESCO had an important role with regards to the implementation of the right to education. The Covenant enunciated the right to work in article 6 and indicated that the steps for the realization of that right should include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes. The concept of a job for life was a thing of the past and people were now obliged to anticipate engaging in several jobs during their working lives. A person’s right to work implied that he or she had a right to receive the preparation that equipped him or her to engage in productive work in a labour market that was in a constant state of flux.
Reacting to questions and comments by Committee Experts, Mr. Iwamoto said that UNESCO stressed that lifetime learning and that training of individuals was essential in fulfilling the right to work. At the national level, it was necessary for the Ministries of Education and Labour to work together to realize the right to work.
RICHARD SIEGEL, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, United States, said that the United States might eventually align itself to the Covenant to which it was not a party. There was a relationship between the right to work and poverty. A basic document on the right to work should make reference to forced labour, slavery, child labour and trafficking in persons for the purpose of labour. The process of globalization was an obstacle to the right to work, in addition to the economic recession, corruption, misuse of economic assistance, and lack of democratisation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) had inherent accountability in the fulfilment of the concept of full employment.
Mr. Siegel said the ILO had the responsibility to uphold the concept of the right to work. A full employment of a society was the aim of economic and social rights. Although a State did not have direct control over direct foreign investment, it should be accountable for the realization of the right to work of its citizens. The donor States also had the responsibility and no one could be absent from responsibility in the management of resources, including the State with regard to the right to work. The State should also be accountable when technology replaced manpower.
VASSIL MRACHKOV, Former Rapporteur and Vice Chairperson of the Committee, Professor, Institute of Legal Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria, said the right to work was not a static right as it was recognized in 1948. The right had been evolving with time and with the changing environment. It had compelled the international community to find evolving interpretation to the right to work, which would contribute to its legal aspect. According to article 6 of the Covenant, the right to work was an individual right as well as a collective right when it referred to trade union rights. The social dimension of work should be seen from the angle of globalization. The characteristics of the right to work could also be economic. More than ever, there was a need for the justiciability of the right to work with all implications of safeguards and implementation. The Committee should move to the next step of making the right to work justiciable. The problem of informal work had been a persisting issue since the 1990s. The protected right to work could be evaded by clandestine work.
Reacting to questions raised by Committee Experts, Mr. Mrachkov said that the justiciability of the right of work could imply bringing a problem to a court for the interpretation of the law by a judge. Non-compliance with the labour law and contracts could also be brought before a judge. However, the right to work did not have any jurisdiction at the international level. Under article 6 of the Covenant, the right to work was an individual right; nevertheless, the violation of the right to work of the individual might imply a collective violation by the State. In the exercise of the right to work, informal work might be manifested in the form of certain civil contracts, which would infringe on the law. Civil contracts remained obscure vis-à-vis the right to work, because of their lack of clarity.
AKMAL SAIDOV, Professor, Director of the National Human Rights Centre of Uzbekistan, said it would be advisable to mention other regional human rights instruments pertaining to the right to work. Also, it seemed to be important to indicate the general comments made by other UN treaty bodies, which had addressed the right to work. The regulation of the right to work at the international level, which had pertained to only national legal systems in the past, had become a modality which everyone was accustomed to. The regulation of that right was a sine qua non protection of and respect for labour rights across the world and was recognized as a universal and natural right. Today, discrimination in the world of labour was the most horrible violation of human rights. Discrimination against workers devaluated substantially the prohibition of forced labour, as it would deprive its victims of the freedom of choice. The adoption of a general comment on the right to work would be instrumental to a uniform understanding and interpretation of the obligations of States parties under the Covenant.
JANEK KUCZKIEWICZ, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), said he was happy to be associated with the work of the Committee; it was the first time that a trade union was involved in such undertakings. Because of the indivisibility of rights, he would have been happy if articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Covenant had been included in one general comment instead of preparing a separate general comment on each of them. On the issue of discrimination, there was belief that article 6 required non-discrimination safeguards. He suggested that discrimination against trade unions should be included among the categories of groups vulnerable to discrimination. The role of trade unions should be stressed in the text presented by Mr. Texier since trade unions were viewed as defenders of human rights. The ILO law-cases should be amply reflected in the draft text of the general comment on article 6. Many ILO documents had emphasized that decent work should be part of the right to work. A code of conduct and ethics should also be integrated in the text.
SHANTHI DAIRIAM, Executive Director of International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW)-Asia Pacific, Women’s Economic Equality Project, said the respect for and the protection and fulfilment of the right to work needed to take place within the framework of equality and non-discrimination. Article 2 of the Covenant obligated States parties to undertake a guarantee of all rights in the Covenant without discrimination, including that which might occur on the basis of sex; and article 3 spoke of the obligation of States parties to enable women and men to enjoy equal rights. Compliance with those two articles would require paying special attention to the elimination of discrimination against women. That was because the prevalent situation in all parts of the world was that it was women who lagged behind men in the enjoyment of all rights.
Ms. Dairiam said States parties should address the particularities of discrimination current and past and the disadvantages and vulnerabilities women faced, and come up with specific legal responses. Creative measures were needed to implement a substantive equality approach through the adoption of a temporary special measure, to enable women to overcome current discrimination and the effect of past discrimination in order to accelerate de facto equality. Creative temporary special measures were a crucial part of the substantive equality approach.
SHANTHI DAIRIAM, speaking on behalf of the Women’s Economic Equality Project, Canada, said because of their different circumstances and life patterns, the right to work had different implications and ramifications for women and for men. Those different implications should be reflected in the text of the general comment on the right to work, if women were to enjoy that right equally. Any discussion of women’s rights to work should be set within the broader context of women’s social and economic disadvantage, which was perpetuated both by old belief systems and by current economic policies. There were traditional, historical, religious and cultural beliefs that had made women’s inequality seem acceptable in all societies. Those belief systems affected women’s enjoyment of the right to work, and their right to enjoy it equally with men. The right to work for women should be understood in the context of women’s poverty, which was different and more severe than men’s poverty. The right to work would only be meaningful for women if it was accorded a substantive equality interpretation. The globalization process was also reinforcing women’s social and economic inequality.
CONSTANCE THOMAS, International Labour Office (ILO), said her Organization was pleased that the Committee was preparing a general comment on the right to work, and the ILO would link it to its convention on the issue. In the text of the draft general comment, the notion of globalization should be given a large space in relation to the right to work. The policy of employment should also be given significance in relating to the right to work. The absence of forced labour should be clearly elaborated in the text. With regard to the obligation, the obligatory aspect of a State should be emphasized on job creation, which was consistent with full employment. The State should be obligated to take measures in creating jobs as a matter of priority. The linkage of the right to work to education and training, as indicated by UNESCO, was an important aspect. Education and training were geared to allowing people to find jobs. The definitions of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) or the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on discrimination could be picked up by the draft text with regard to the right to work. The Committee should address the definition of remunerative work. Concerning child labour, the text should include prohibitive clauses within the spirit of ILO Conventions 138 and 182.
A Committee Expert said that measures of affirmative action were necessary for vulnerable groups such as women, the disabled, migrant workers, minorities and elderly people. Article 9 of the Covenant on the enjoyment of social security might be included in the text of the general comment.
Reacting to questions raised by Committee Experts, a representative of ILO said that the Organization had prohibited night shifts involving women. However, protection should be made for women and men working in the night. In some contexts, such as agriculture, women were prohibiting from working in the night. Under the concerns of safety, women might be prohibited from working. For certain sectors, protective measures should be applied for the safety of women.
MACHFELD INGE VAN DOOREN, Amersfoorst, the Netherlands, said that the list of grounds for discrimination in the text was illustrative and not exhaustive. Any form of discrimination should be prohibited in the text. There was a risk that in some circumstances, the right to work might mean the right to be provided with work. On the issue of justiciability, there was a range of measures undertaken by States. The obligation of States to fulfil the right to work and to redress the situation should be stressed. The obligation of redressing required the facilitation of access to work for disadvantaged groups of the society.
A Committee Expert said that there was a need for further work on the text. The right to work could not be brought in on the same line with article 11 of the Covenant, which was the right to an adequate standard of living. He asked if an orphan who had nothing to eat could be engaged in remunerative activities in order to survive in contravention to the prohibition of child labour.
PHILIPPE TEXIER, Committee Expert, said all the suggestions made by the Committee’s Experts and outside speakers would be taken into consideration. The written comment that might be finalized between today and the next session of the Committee would also be taken as inputs. He said he had taken due note of the issue of women’s discrimination. On the point of justiciability, the idea was for the search of a full employment policy. He had also taken note of the issue of forced labour within the context of prisoners. As part of the ILO, the trade unions were more or less included in the context. Since the comment was mainly addressed to States parties, exclusive mention of trade unions was not required. Although it was not easy to incorporate everything, he would try to do so until the Committee adopted the text.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights today held a day of general discussion on the right to work with the aim of elaborating a general comment pertaining to article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Article 6 of the Covenant stipulates that “the States parties to the Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work, which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard his rights”.
Committee Chairperson Virginia Bonoan-Dandan said that the Committee had so far adopted 15 general comments on various articles of the International Covenant. The thematic issues of the general comments were related to economic, social and cultural rights such as the rights to housing, education, health and water. The Committee would continue adopting general comments on specific provisions of the Covenant in order to further clarify the provisions.
Committee Expert Philippe Texier presented a draft general comment on the right to work relating to article 6 of the Covenant, which was also a text of reference during the debate. The 56-paragraph document should be adopted during the Committee’s next session in May 2004, as General Comment No.17. The Committee will also adopt a general comment on article 3 on the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of economic, social cultural rights set forth in the Covenant, which will be No. 16.
During the discussion, the notion of globalization and its effect on the right to work was highlighted. Many speakers were of the view that the right to work should be accompanied by the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work and the need for decent work. The issue of discrimination in work, particularly the lack of special protection measures for women, was stressed with regard to the rights of women.
Taking part in the discussion were Philippe Texier, Committee Expert; Wataru Iwamoto, Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education Sector, UNESCO; Richard Siegel, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada; Vassil Mrachkov, Former Rapporteur and Vice Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Professor, Institute of Legal Sciences, Sofia; Akmal Saidov, Professor, Director of the National Human Rights Centre of Uzbekistan; Olga Krylova, Centre of Social and Labour Rights, Moscow; Janek Kuczkiewcz, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Director, Department of Trade Unions Rights, Brussels; Shanthi Dairiam, Executive Director of IWRAW-Asia Pacific, Women’s Economic Equality Project; Constance Thomas, International Labour Office; and Machfeld Inge van Dooren, Amersfoorst, the Netherlands. Other Committee Experts also participated in the debate.
At each of its sessions, the Committee devotes one day to a general discussion of a particular right or of a particular aspect of the Covenant, which has been acceded to by 148 States.
The next public meeting of the Committee will take place at 10 a.m. on Friday, 28 November, when the Experts will finalize their three-week autumn session and issue their conclusions and recommendations on the country reports which they have considered this session.
Discussion
PHILIPPE TEXIER, Committee Expert, said that the International Labour Office (ILO) had greatly contributed to his work concerning article 6 of the Covenant on the right to work. He also cited the names of other individual experts who had contributed to his work.
He said that the drafting of a general comment was a lengthy process that required the involvement of all members of the Committee and other outside expertise. Since the birth of the Committee, the ILO had been providing input to the work of the Committee on various issues.
There could be no right to work if it was not accompanied by a decent salary, Mr. Texier said. The issue of formal and informal work was also a thorny subject as millions of people were engaged in informal work that was not adequately remunerated.
It was hoped that the Committee would adopt the general comment on the right to work in May 2004. Once the comment was adopted, the Committee would continue to deal with articles 7 and 8 of the Covenant on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work, and the right of everyone to form trade unions and to join the trade union of his or her choice.
WATARU IWAMOTO, Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said UNESCO had an important role with regards to the implementation of the right to education. The Covenant enunciated the right to work in article 6 and indicated that the steps for the realization of that right should include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes. The concept of a job for life was a thing of the past and people were now obliged to anticipate engaging in several jobs during their working lives. A person’s right to work implied that he or she had a right to receive the preparation that equipped him or her to engage in productive work in a labour market that was in a constant state of flux.
Reacting to questions and comments by Committee Experts, Mr. Iwamoto said that UNESCO stressed that lifetime learning and that training of individuals was essential in fulfilling the right to work. At the national level, it was necessary for the Ministries of Education and Labour to work together to realize the right to work.
RICHARD SIEGEL, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, United States, said that the United States might eventually align itself to the Covenant to which it was not a party. There was a relationship between the right to work and poverty. A basic document on the right to work should make reference to forced labour, slavery, child labour and trafficking in persons for the purpose of labour. The process of globalization was an obstacle to the right to work, in addition to the economic recession, corruption, misuse of economic assistance, and lack of democratisation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) had inherent accountability in the fulfilment of the concept of full employment.
Mr. Siegel said the ILO had the responsibility to uphold the concept of the right to work. A full employment of a society was the aim of economic and social rights. Although a State did not have direct control over direct foreign investment, it should be accountable for the realization of the right to work of its citizens. The donor States also had the responsibility and no one could be absent from responsibility in the management of resources, including the State with regard to the right to work. The State should also be accountable when technology replaced manpower.
VASSIL MRACHKOV, Former Rapporteur and Vice Chairperson of the Committee, Professor, Institute of Legal Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria, said the right to work was not a static right as it was recognized in 1948. The right had been evolving with time and with the changing environment. It had compelled the international community to find evolving interpretation to the right to work, which would contribute to its legal aspect. According to article 6 of the Covenant, the right to work was an individual right as well as a collective right when it referred to trade union rights. The social dimension of work should be seen from the angle of globalization. The characteristics of the right to work could also be economic. More than ever, there was a need for the justiciability of the right to work with all implications of safeguards and implementation. The Committee should move to the next step of making the right to work justiciable. The problem of informal work had been a persisting issue since the 1990s. The protected right to work could be evaded by clandestine work.
Reacting to questions raised by Committee Experts, Mr. Mrachkov said that the justiciability of the right of work could imply bringing a problem to a court for the interpretation of the law by a judge. Non-compliance with the labour law and contracts could also be brought before a judge. However, the right to work did not have any jurisdiction at the international level. Under article 6 of the Covenant, the right to work was an individual right; nevertheless, the violation of the right to work of the individual might imply a collective violation by the State. In the exercise of the right to work, informal work might be manifested in the form of certain civil contracts, which would infringe on the law. Civil contracts remained obscure vis-à-vis the right to work, because of their lack of clarity.
AKMAL SAIDOV, Professor, Director of the National Human Rights Centre of Uzbekistan, said it would be advisable to mention other regional human rights instruments pertaining to the right to work. Also, it seemed to be important to indicate the general comments made by other UN treaty bodies, which had addressed the right to work. The regulation of the right to work at the international level, which had pertained to only national legal systems in the past, had become a modality which everyone was accustomed to. The regulation of that right was a sine qua non protection of and respect for labour rights across the world and was recognized as a universal and natural right. Today, discrimination in the world of labour was the most horrible violation of human rights. Discrimination against workers devaluated substantially the prohibition of forced labour, as it would deprive its victims of the freedom of choice. The adoption of a general comment on the right to work would be instrumental to a uniform understanding and interpretation of the obligations of States parties under the Covenant.
JANEK KUCZKIEWICZ, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), said he was happy to be associated with the work of the Committee; it was the first time that a trade union was involved in such undertakings. Because of the indivisibility of rights, he would have been happy if articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Covenant had been included in one general comment instead of preparing a separate general comment on each of them. On the issue of discrimination, there was belief that article 6 required non-discrimination safeguards. He suggested that discrimination against trade unions should be included among the categories of groups vulnerable to discrimination. The role of trade unions should be stressed in the text presented by Mr. Texier since trade unions were viewed as defenders of human rights. The ILO law-cases should be amply reflected in the draft text of the general comment on article 6. Many ILO documents had emphasized that decent work should be part of the right to work. A code of conduct and ethics should also be integrated in the text.
SHANTHI DAIRIAM, Executive Director of International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW)-Asia Pacific, Women’s Economic Equality Project, said the respect for and the protection and fulfilment of the right to work needed to take place within the framework of equality and non-discrimination. Article 2 of the Covenant obligated States parties to undertake a guarantee of all rights in the Covenant without discrimination, including that which might occur on the basis of sex; and article 3 spoke of the obligation of States parties to enable women and men to enjoy equal rights. Compliance with those two articles would require paying special attention to the elimination of discrimination against women. That was because the prevalent situation in all parts of the world was that it was women who lagged behind men in the enjoyment of all rights.
Ms. Dairiam said States parties should address the particularities of discrimination current and past and the disadvantages and vulnerabilities women faced, and come up with specific legal responses. Creative measures were needed to implement a substantive equality approach through the adoption of a temporary special measure, to enable women to overcome current discrimination and the effect of past discrimination in order to accelerate de facto equality. Creative temporary special measures were a crucial part of the substantive equality approach.
SHANTHI DAIRIAM, speaking on behalf of the Women’s Economic Equality Project, Canada, said because of their different circumstances and life patterns, the right to work had different implications and ramifications for women and for men. Those different implications should be reflected in the text of the general comment on the right to work, if women were to enjoy that right equally. Any discussion of women’s rights to work should be set within the broader context of women’s social and economic disadvantage, which was perpetuated both by old belief systems and by current economic policies. There were traditional, historical, religious and cultural beliefs that had made women’s inequality seem acceptable in all societies. Those belief systems affected women’s enjoyment of the right to work, and their right to enjoy it equally with men. The right to work for women should be understood in the context of women’s poverty, which was different and more severe than men’s poverty. The right to work would only be meaningful for women if it was accorded a substantive equality interpretation. The globalization process was also reinforcing women’s social and economic inequality.
CONSTANCE THOMAS, International Labour Office (ILO), said her Organization was pleased that the Committee was preparing a general comment on the right to work, and the ILO would link it to its convention on the issue. In the text of the draft general comment, the notion of globalization should be given a large space in relation to the right to work. The policy of employment should also be given significance in relating to the right to work. The absence of forced labour should be clearly elaborated in the text. With regard to the obligation, the obligatory aspect of a State should be emphasized on job creation, which was consistent with full employment. The State should be obligated to take measures in creating jobs as a matter of priority. The linkage of the right to work to education and training, as indicated by UNESCO, was an important aspect. Education and training were geared to allowing people to find jobs. The definitions of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) or the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on discrimination could be picked up by the draft text with regard to the right to work. The Committee should address the definition of remunerative work. Concerning child labour, the text should include prohibitive clauses within the spirit of ILO Conventions 138 and 182.
A Committee Expert said that measures of affirmative action were necessary for vulnerable groups such as women, the disabled, migrant workers, minorities and elderly people. Article 9 of the Covenant on the enjoyment of social security might be included in the text of the general comment.
Reacting to questions raised by Committee Experts, a representative of ILO said that the Organization had prohibited night shifts involving women. However, protection should be made for women and men working in the night. In some contexts, such as agriculture, women were prohibiting from working in the night. Under the concerns of safety, women might be prohibited from working. For certain sectors, protective measures should be applied for the safety of women.
MACHFELD INGE VAN DOOREN, Amersfoorst, the Netherlands, said that the list of grounds for discrimination in the text was illustrative and not exhaustive. Any form of discrimination should be prohibited in the text. There was a risk that in some circumstances, the right to work might mean the right to be provided with work. On the issue of justiciability, there was a range of measures undertaken by States. The obligation of States to fulfil the right to work and to redress the situation should be stressed. The obligation of redressing required the facilitation of access to work for disadvantaged groups of the society.
A Committee Expert said that there was a need for further work on the text. The right to work could not be brought in on the same line with article 11 of the Covenant, which was the right to an adequate standard of living. He asked if an orphan who had nothing to eat could be engaged in remunerative activities in order to survive in contravention to the prohibition of child labour.
PHILIPPE TEXIER, Committee Expert, said all the suggestions made by the Committee’s Experts and outside speakers would be taken into consideration. The written comment that might be finalized between today and the next session of the Committee would also be taken as inputs. He said he had taken due note of the issue of women’s discrimination. On the point of justiciability, the idea was for the search of a full employment policy. He had also taken note of the issue of forced labour within the context of prisoners. As part of the ILO, the trade unions were more or less included in the context. Since the comment was mainly addressed to States parties, exclusive mention of trade unions was not required. Although it was not easy to incorporate everything, he would try to do so until the Committee adopted the text.
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