Enhancing A Principled Justificatory Model Of Adjudication For The Protection of Human Rights In The Socio-Economic Sphere : The Impact of The European Social Charter on The Case Law Of The European Court Of Human Rights

This article reviews some important developments of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) relating to socio-economic rights. In its early case law on this subject, the ECtHR’s approach, in accordance with the primary aim of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)—that is, the protection of civil and political rights—was to ensure the social dimension of the civil and political rights protected under the ECHR. This approach appears commendable, but in practice it failed to develop a principled justificatory model of adjudication for the protection of human rights in the socio-economic sphere. And, indeed, this is why the ECtHR has recently undertaken a different approach. In essence, and though there can be room for further development, the ECtHR has moved to abandon a jurisprudence that makes the protection of socio-economic rights entirely dependent on the possibility offered by the ECHR in favour of elaborating a socio-economic jurisprudence that also takes into account the European Social Charter for the interpretation of the ECHR.