Summary: The complaint was filed at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) by a group of retired public servants against the State of Peru  alleging violation of the right to property and the right to judicial protection relating to non-compliance with court decisions. Concerning the reduction of retiree...

Summary: The European Committee of Social Rights reviewed the report of the Dutch government on the levels of social security in The Netherlands and noted that the Unemployment Benefit Act (WW) comprises a short-term benefit (conditions for payment 26 weeks of paid employment during the last 39 weeks), and...

Summary: The European Committee of Social Rights reviewed the report submitted by the Danish government on the level of social security in Denmark. Under Article 12, the Committee considered that one of the aims of an unemployment benefit system is to offer unemployed persons adequate protection during at least...

Summary: The European Committee of Social Rights assess the adequacy of the benefits provided under the different branches of social security in Hungary in light of Article 12(1) of the European Social Charter. In light with its previous conclusions, notes that social security benefits are adequate when they are...

Summary: The European Committee of Social Rights assess the adequacy of the benefits provided under the different branches of social security in Ireland in light of Article 12(1) of the European Social Charter. In light with its previous conclusions, notes that social security benefits are adequate when they are...

Summary: The European Committee of Social Rights notes that a social security system must guarantee an effective right to social security with respect to the benefits provided under each branch (Conclusions XIII-4, General Introduction on Article 12). Moreover, the Committee recalls that Article 12(1) requires social security benefits to...

Summary: A black single mother with two children and relying on social assistance and public housing was given one month’s notice that she would be evicted from her home with no reason given. In Canada public housing was exempted from the security of tenure provisions of the Residential Tenancies...

Summary: The case was brought before the Supreme Court of Venezuela by a group of persons living with HIV, requesting the Instituto Venezolano de Seguros Sociales (Venezuelan Institute for Social Security, IVSS) to ensure the supply of drugs needed to treat diseases arising from AIDS and cover the expenses...

Summary: The case involved three brothers, originally from what was previously Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), who were denied access to social welfare benefits in Switzerland on account of being illegal residents . The brothers had been living in Switzerland since 1980, but were expelled to Czechoslovakia in 1987...

Summary: In 2000, twenty Latvian parliamentarians complained to Latvia’s Constitutional Court that certain employers within Latvia were not paying social insurance premiums into a fund for their employees, and that this was a breach of the human right to social security as per Latvia’s constitution as well as Articles...

Summary: The case was brought before the Constitutional Court of South Africa by Mozambican citizens living in South Africa as permanent residents. The applicants challenged the validity of certain provisions of the Social Assistance Act 59 of 1992 that denied social assistance to foreign nationals. They cited the infringement...

Summary: In this case, the House of Lords listened to appeals by the Secretary of State for Home Department, who denied state support to destitute asylum applicants (“applicants”) on the grounds of not having applied for asylum “as soon as reasonably practicable”. The applicants cited a violation of Article...

Summary: In 2001 the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties claimed that that recent starvation deaths that occurred in the Indian State of Rajasthan were the result of the State’s failure to release grain stocks in fact kept as a guard against famine, and that this denial amounted to a...

Summary: Four male applicants, above the age of 60 but below 65, mounted a constitutional challenge to Section 10 of South Africa’s Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 and the relevant Regulations, which set the age for accessing an old age grant at 60 for women and 65 for...

Across the world, states have made binding commitments under international human rights law to do what they can to ensure all their population attains its basic material needs. And yet, governments in numerous countries have been introducing so-called conditional cash transfer schemes (CCTs) based on the imposition of forms...

Any element of social policy which hopes to be successful needs to take gender equality into account. This is true for social protection systems, and there has been good work done on this, notably by the ILO and others. This consideration of gender-sensitive social protection systems can be taken...

Often when the impact of social protection is discussed, extensive monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are pulled out of the bag and the degree to which poverty has been alleviated is put forth as the yard stick. What these considerations sometimes fail to acknowledge is the compounding effects of poverty:...

Human rights have an important role to play in supporting the objectives of social protection which include the prevention of poverty and inequality, ensuring solidarity and inclusion, and creating economically and socially fairer societies. They offer a normative basis and a legal imperative for requiring that states realize the...

Summary: Recycling activities in Colombia have traditionally been carried out by extremely poor and marginalized sectors of society. Materials are collected from landfills or the streets, transported and sold as recyclable material to intermediary informal warehouses for modest sums. However, over the course of the last decade, recycling became...

Summary: The case was brought before the Constitutional Court of Colombia by the mother of a girl who was diagnosed with cognitive deficit and microcephaly. She contended that the official combined programme of therapy and special education were unaffordable to her. The Court referred to Article 12 of the...

Charles Lwanga-Ntale is the Regional Director and Special Adviser for East & Central Africa at Development Initiatives. A Rejoinder to ‘Pro-Poor and Pro-Development Transparency’ Issa Luna Pla’s article Pro-Poor and Pro-Development Transparency Laws and Policies makes well-founded points about the limited use of access to information laws by poor...

Summary: CIPPEC (Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento ) has been denied access to information concerning the beneficiaries of subsidies and social cash transfer programs in 2006 and 2007. The Supreme Court considered that accessing such data has a clear public interest, since it enables...

Universality of protection Dignity and autonomy Inclusion of vulnerable groups Equality and non-discrimination Gender perspective Transparency and access to information Meaningful and effective participation Access to accountability mechanisms and effective remedies Respect of privacy Comprehensive, coherent and coordinated policies Adequate legal and institutional framework and adopt long-term social protection...

Transparency, accountability and reliability have become universally recognized key operational principles for the good governance of public administration. In effect, transparency and access to information are essential components of a rights-based social protection system. To effectively guarantee transparency, information should be available, accessible and disseminated among the population. In...

Summary: The case was brought before the High Court of Kenya by Hakijamii, a human rights organisation in Nairobi, based on the request of over 1,000 individuals. They included women, children and older persons who reported having been evicted from their homes in Garissa municipality. The homes were built...