Dear reader,
We are pleased to present the third volume of an eight-part Commentary on the European Social Charter, prepared by the Academic Network on the European Social Charter and Social Rights (anesc or the Network).1
As Giovanni Guiglia, former anesc/racse’s General Coordinator wrote: “Our Network aims to promote the European Social Charter and the other legal instruments for the protection of social rights, in law, policy-making and academic studies, across different countries and their academics, in Europe. To this end, the anesc develops activities in the fields of education, training, research, and pro-bono legal practice. The Network is composed of nearly 200 members from 14 European countries (Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom). These are mainly academics who work in different legal fields, including social, constitutional, international and labour law, as well as few judges, lawyers and human rights consultants”.2
A few years ago, the anesc’s governing bodies decided that the Network would start the drafting of the first-ever-published Commentary on the European Social Charter (esc) System, following the numbering of the Revised Charter: Volume 1 (Cross-cutting themes – published in may 2022); Volume 2 (Preamble, Part i, Part ii – Articles 1 to 10 – published in February 2023); Volume 3 (Part ii – Articles 11 to 19); Volume 4 (Part ii – Articles 20 to 31 – publishing ongoing); Volume 5 (Part iii, Art A and B, Part iv, Art C); Volume 6 (Part iv, art D – Collective complaints); Volume 7 (Part v – Art E, F, G, H, I, J, Part vi – Art K, L, M, N, O and introduction of the Appendix); Volume 8 (Rules of the European Committee of Social Rights). The last four volumes will be published during the next two years.
This third volume, which examines critical esc welfare rights for the general population and specific groups of people against the European Committee of Social Rights’ jurisprudence and other international standards, is the result of the efforts of several members of the anesc, under our editorial lead. We congratulate the authors of this volume, senior and junior academics and human rights experts, for their valuable research and all those anesc members that
We wish you a good reading and hope that this this Commentary, together with the other seven volumes, can become a particularly useful companion for academics and human rights practitioners to navigate European social standards and procedures vis-à-vis the many socioeconomic challenges of our times.
Belfast / Colchester / Brussels,
August 2023
Stefano Angeleri
Queen’s University Belfast
Koldo Casla
University of Essex
Sébastien Van Drooghenbroeck
UCLouvain – St. Louis Bruxelles