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Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Project) provides academic research, legal and policy expertise and advice, teaching and training for students and professionals, and resources and publications for a variety of audiences on economic, social and cultural rights.

The ESCR Project is jointly coordinated by Research Fellow Dr. Christophe Golay and Ms Claire Mahon. Ms Ioana Cismas, PhD candidate in international law at IHEID, is a researcher with the project. Ms Ivona Truscan, PhD candidate in international law at IHEID, is in charge of the organization of the training activities of the Project. The ESCR Project team can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Academic research and legal and policy advice

The ESCR Project provides academic expertise and legal advice to a variety of audiences, including the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and the Special Procedures that address economic, social and cultural rights, as well as to academia, students, NGOs, diplomats, UN staff, courts and tribunals and UN Treaty Bodies.
The ESCR Project plays an important role in facilitating the understanding and development of legal and policy issues related to ESCR by providing input and by offering the space for brainstorming and discussion among experts in the field and the wider public. Along these lines, a series of successful events have been organized in the last years:

In March 2012, the Academy supported the organization at the Palais des Nations of an event of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, placed under the patronage of Ms. Ruth Dreifuss, member of the Swiss Federal Government between 1993 – 2002. The conference dealt with the responsibility of states and international organizations for the children who are victims of Noma, the disfiguring disease which is traced to the intersection of severe malnutrition and extreme poverty.
In 2010 – 2011, the ESCR Project organized a series of five workshops for the Swiss federal administration and civil society in Bern on the right to food, the rights to water and sanitation, the right to health, cultural rights and the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights respectively. The workshops benefited from the expertise of several UN Special Rapporteurs and the Swiss Chair of Human Rights, Prof. Eibe Riedel.
In March 2010, the ESCR Project hosted the conference “A New Initiative to Protect the Right of Peasants”, chaired by Jean Ziegler and having as distinguished guest speakers Prof. Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, H.E. Jean Feyder, Ambassador of Luxembourg to the UN, Sandra Ratjen, Advocacy Coordinator of FIAN International and Henry Saragih, International Coordinator of La Via Campesina.
Together with the NGO 3D, the ESCR Project hosted in May 2009 a seminar on “The Global Land Grab: A Human Rights Approach”, which attracted great interest from UN Special Procedure, members of different treaty bodies and representatives of UN agencies and other researchers.
In June 2009, the third volume of the Swiss Human Rights Books focusing on Realizing the Rights to Health was launched. The International Symposium organized with this occasion benefitted from the participation of world experts on the right to health, such as Mary Robinson, Chair of the GAVI Alliance, Mary Crewe, Director for the Centre of the Study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria, Eibe Riedel, Swiss Chair of Human Rights and Member of the UN Committee on ESCR.
With the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, an expert seminar was hosted in July 2009, on the role and impact of the UN Special Procedures in the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights law and practice. Former and current Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts, researchers having worked or working as advisers to special procedures and staff from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights were present at the expert meeting.

Teaching and Training

The ESCR Project offers teaching, training, short courses and further education on ESC rights for graduate students, diplomats, staff of international organisations, non-governmental organisations and national human rights commissions. As part of its training activities, the ESCR Project organizes two annual trainings on ESCR: the Training on Understanding Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Advanced Training on Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Tailored courses are being offered to national human rights commissions, governments, NGOs, and other organisations, responding to the need for training and specific expertise in monitoring ESCR in national contexts. Such courses have been offered to the Human Rights Commission and NGOs of the Maldives in 2010 and to the Human Rights Commission and NGOs of Nepal in 2011.