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Proportionality as procedure: Strengthening the legitimate authority of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

Alain Zysset Open the ORCID record for Alain Zysset [Opens in a new window]  and
Antoinette Scherz
Alain Zysset*
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Antoinette Scherz*
Affiliation:
PluriCourts, University of Oslo, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. Email: alain.zysset@glasgow.ac.uk; antoinette.scherz@jus.uio.no
*Corresponding author. Email: alain.zysset@glasgow.ac.uk; antoinette.scherz@jus.uio.no
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Abstract

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has a new mechanism to receive individual complaints and issue views, which makes the question of how the Committee should interpret the broad articles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights more pressing than ever. Most commentators on the legitimacy of the CESCR’s interpretation have argued that interpreters should make better use of Articles 31–33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) in order to improve the legitimacy of their findings. In this article, we argue conversely that the individual communication mechanism should be evaluated and reformed in terms of legitimate authority. In the context of the Committee’s process of interpretation, we contend that proportionality is better suited than the various interpretive options of the VCLT to offer a consistent procedure that is able to generate legitimacy by attenuating the tension between personal and collective autonomy.

Keywords

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)economic, social and cultural rightsInternational Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rightslawproportionality as procedureVienna Convention on the Law of TreatiesLegitimacyAuthority
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 524 - 546
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Alain Zysset and Antoinette Scherz contributed equally to this work.

References

References

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Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 2006. ‘The Problem of Authority: Revisiting the Service Conception’. Minnesota Law Review 90:1003–44.Google Scholar
Rundle, Kristen 2012. Forms Liberate: Reclaiming the Jurisprudence of Lon L Fuller. Oxford: Hart.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Johan Karlsson. 2015. ‘The Co-Originality of Human Rights and Democracy in an International Order’. International Theory 7(1):96–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherz, Antoinette. 2019. ‘Tying Legitimacy to Political Power: Graded Legitimacy Standards for International Institutions’. European Journal of Political Theory. doi:10.1177/1474885119838137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Stiansen, Øyvind. 2019. ‘Directing Compliance? Remedial Approach and Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgments’. British Journal of Political Science 51(2):1–9.Google Scholar
Thorburn, Malcolm. 2016. ‘Proportionality’. In Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law, edited by Dyzenhaus, David and Thorburn, Malcolm, 305–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viehoff, Daniel. 2014. ‘Democratic Equality and Political Authority’. Philosophy & Public Affairs 42(4):337–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1964. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Young, Katharine G. 2017. ‘Proportionality, Reasonableness, and Economic and Social Rights’. In Proportionality: New Frontiers, New Challenges, edited by Jackson, Vicki and Tushnet, Mark, 221–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mohamed Ben Djazia and Naouel Bellili v Spain , Committee, Communication No. 5/2015, UN Doc. E/C.12/61/D/5/2015, 20 June 2017.Google Scholar
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Committee), General Comment No. 9: The domestic application of the Covenant, 3 December 1998, E/C.12/1998/24.Google Scholar
Adams, Nate P. 2017. ‘In Defense of Content-Independence’. Legal Theory 23(3):143–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Applbaum, Arthur Isak. 2010. ‘Legitimacy Without the Duty to Obey’. Philosophy & Public Affairs 38(3):215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beetham, David. 1991. The Legitimation of Power. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besson, Samantha. 2014. ‘The Legitimate Authority of International Human Rights’. In The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Regimes. Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Føllesdal, Andreas, Schaffer, Johan Karlsson and Ulfstein, Geir, 32–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bjorge, Eirik. 2014. The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W., Kelly, Jarrod T., Pronin, Kira, Redman, Shane M. and Zarit, Matthew. 2017. ‘Evaluating the Effects of Multiple Opinion Rationales on Supreme Court Legitimacy’. American Politics Research 45(3):335–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 2002. ‘Political Legitimacy and Democracy’. Ethics 112(4):689–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 2010. Human Rights, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Allen. 2018. ‘Institutional Legitimacy’. In Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, edited by Sobel, David, Vallentyne, Peter and Wall, Steven, 53–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Çalı, Başak. 2018. ‘Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights’. In The Oxford Guide to Treaties, edited by Hollis, Duncan, 504–23. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Çalı, Başak and Galand, Alexandre Skander. 2020. ‘Strengthening and Enhancing the Effective Functioning of the UN Human Rights Treaty Body System Individual Complaints Mechanisms’. MENA Rights Group, at: <https://menarights.org/en/documents/justice-delayed-consequences-dysfunctional-petition-system-individual-communications-0>..>Google Scholar
Cohen-Eliya, Moshe and Porat, Iddo. 2013 Proportionality and Constitutional Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Contiades, Xenophon. 2012. ‘Social Rights in the Age of Proportionality: Global Economic Crisis and Constitutional Litigation’. International Journal of Constitutional Law 10(3):660–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endicott, Timothy. 2014. ‘Proportionality and Incommensurability’. In Proportionality and the Rule of Law: Rights, Justification, Reasoning edited by Huscroft, Grant, Miller, Bradley and Webber, Grégoire, 311–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farganis, Dion 2012. ‘Do Reasons Matter? The Impact of Opinion Content on Supreme Court Legitimacy’. Political Research Quarterly 65(1):206–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forst, Rainer 2012. The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Franck, Thomas M 1990. The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, Lon. 1969. The Morality of Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen. 2014. ‘Proportionality and Democratic Constitutionalism’. In Proportionality and the Rule of Law: Rights, Justification, Reasoning, edited by Huscroft, Grant, Miller, Bradley and Webber, Grégoire, 259–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jürgen, Habermas 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Helen, Grover, Leena and Ulfstein, Geir. 2012. ‘General Comments of the Human Rights Committee and Their Legitimacy’. In UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy, edited by Keller, Helen, Ulfstein, Geir and Grover, Leena, 116–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumm, Mattias. 2010. ‘The Idea of Socratic Contestation and the Right to Justification: The Point of Rights-Based Proportionality Review’. Law & Ethics of Human Rights 4(2):142–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moeckli, Daniel. 2018. ‘Interpretation of the ICESCR: Between Morality and State Consent’. In The Human Rights Covenants at 50: Their Past, Present, and Future, edited by Keller, Helen, Moeckli, Daniel and Heri, Corina. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moeckli, Daniel, Keller, Helen and Heri, Corina. 2018. The Human Rights Covenants at 50: Their Past, Present, and Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Möller, Kai. 2012. The Global Model of Constitutional Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Möller, Kai. 2014. ‘“Balancing as Reasoning” and the Problems of Legally Unaided Adjudication: A Rejoinder to Francisco Urbina’. International Journal of Constitutional Law 12(1):222–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 2011. Law’s Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peter, Fabienne. 2010. ‘Political Legitimacy’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/legitimacy.Google Scholar
Peter, Fabienne. 2020. ‘The Grounds of Political Legitimacy’. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 6(3):372–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, Philip. 1993. The Common Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1980. ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’. The Journal of Philosophy 77(9):515–72.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 2006. ‘The Problem of Authority: Revisiting the Service Conception’. Minnesota Law Review 90:1003–44.Google Scholar
Rundle, Kristen 2012. Forms Liberate: Reclaiming the Jurisprudence of Lon L Fuller. Oxford: Hart.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Johan Karlsson. 2015. ‘The Co-Originality of Human Rights and Democracy in an International Order’. International Theory 7(1):96–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherz, Antoinette. 2019. ‘Tying Legitimacy to Political Power: Graded Legitimacy Standards for International Institutions’. European Journal of Political Theory. doi:10.1177/1474885119838137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheinin, Martin. 2017. ‘The Art and Science of Interpretation in Human Rights Law’. In Research Methods in Human Rights: A Handbook, edited by Andreassen, Bård A., Sano, Hans-Otto and McInerney-Lankford, Siobhan, 17–37. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlütter, Birgit. 2012. ‘Aspects of Human Rights Interpretation by the UN Treaty Bodies’. In UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy, edited by Keller, Helen, Ulfstein, Geir and Grover, Leena, 261–319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K. and Romero, Alexia. 2019. ‘Rational Remedies: The Role of Opinion Clarity in the Inter-American Human Rights System’. International Studies Quarterly 63(3):477–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiansen, Øyvind. 2019. ‘Directing Compliance? Remedial Approach and Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgments’. British Journal of Political Science 51(2):1–9.Google Scholar
Thorburn, Malcolm. 2016. ‘Proportionality’. In Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law, edited by Dyzenhaus, David and Thorburn, Malcolm, 305–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viehoff, Daniel. 2014. ‘Democratic Equality and Political Authority’. Philosophy & Public Affairs 42(4):337–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1964. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Young, Katharine G. 2017. ‘Proportionality, Reasonableness, and Economic and Social Rights’. In Proportionality: New Frontiers, New Challenges, edited by Jackson, Vicki and Tushnet, Mark, 221–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mohamed Ben Djazia and Naouel Bellili v Spain , Committee, Communication No. 5/2015, UN Doc. E/C.12/61/D/5/2015, 20 June 2017.Google Scholar
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Committee), General Comment No. 9: The domestic application of the Covenant, 3 December 1998, E/C.12/1998/24.Google Scholar