This seems a bit confused and idealistic. You are a law student so presumably you understand the differences between international law and domestic law, the difference between the EU and ECHR and the limited meaning of ‘legally obligated’ in relation to international covenants. The concept of progressive realisation in relation to the ICESR etc etc. However, the way you have written this makes no attempt to explain these things and I worry it comes across as misleading or confusing.
The paragraph that is most interesting to me is:”EU countries regularly comply with court orders to fulfil their obligations under the ICESCR.” Can you clarify which EU countries and give some example cases? Certainly, the ICESR is not legally justiciable in the UK. I don’t really know anything about German/French law or other Civil law systems but I would be surprised if it was, and even more surprised if there was a plausible way for someone to have legal capacity to bring claims about extraterritorial effect!
My suspicion here is that you are barking up a noble but misconceived tree. My prior based on my experiences is that ‘But its the (international) law’ is not a very helpful political argument likely to get more aid to effective causes and that your idea for justiciable options is likely to be a mirage when you look into it more. Would be interested to be wrong on either point though!
Even if it is not legally enforceable, doesn’t the 0.7% of GNP figure act as a sort of schelling point here? If so, it could be used in the same way we currently use the “give 10% of your income” meme, as just an anchoring number to show the ballpark we’re interested in and not have it sound like we just made up a number from whole cloth.
One potentially viable option is the International Court of Justice, although this would require finding a developing country to sponsor the litigation and effectively sue a wealthy country. That would be pretty cool but I’m not sure if it’s possible
An even bigger problem is that jurisdiction of the ICJ is based on the consent of the parties to a particular deispute so you would have to find a rich country willing to be ‘effectively sued’ as well.
This seems a bit confused and idealistic. You are a law student so presumably you understand the differences between international law and domestic law, the difference between the EU and ECHR and the limited meaning of ‘legally obligated’ in relation to international covenants. The concept of progressive realisation in relation to the ICESR etc etc. However, the way you have written this makes no attempt to explain these things and I worry it comes across as misleading or confusing.
The paragraph that is most interesting to me is:”EU countries regularly comply with court orders to fulfil their obligations under the ICESCR.” Can you clarify which EU countries and give some example cases? Certainly, the ICESR is not legally justiciable in the UK. I don’t really know anything about German/French law or other Civil law systems but I would be surprised if it was, and even more surprised if there was a plausible way for someone to have legal capacity to bring claims about extraterritorial effect!
My suspicion here is that you are barking up a noble but misconceived tree. My prior based on my experiences is that ‘But its the (international) law’ is not a very helpful political argument likely to get more aid to effective causes and that your idea for justiciable options is likely to be a mirage when you look into it more. Would be interested to be wrong on either point though!
Even if it is not legally enforceable, doesn’t the 0.7% of GNP figure act as a sort of schelling point here? If so, it could be used in the same way we currently use the “give 10% of your income” meme, as just an anchoring number to show the ballpark we’re interested in and not have it sound like we just made up a number from whole cloth.
One potentially viable option is the International Court of Justice, although this would require finding a developing country to sponsor the litigation and effectively sue a wealthy country. That would be pretty cool but I’m not sure if it’s possible An even bigger problem is that jurisdiction of the ICJ is based on the consent of the parties to a particular deispute so you would have to find a rich country willing to be ‘effectively sued’ as well.
The WTO will not have jurisdiction over ICESCR claims—see this paper which explains this