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Chapter 3 Bangalore Declaration and Plan of Action Regarding Economic, Cultural and Social Rights and the Role of Lawyers 1. Between 23–25 October 1995 the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in conjunction with the Commission’s Triennial Meeting, convened in Bangalore, India, a Conference on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Role of Lawyers. 2. The Conference was inaugurated by the Hon Chief Justice of India (The Hon A. M. Ahmadi) and the Minister of State for External Affairs (the Hon S. Kurshid, M.P.) in the presence of distinguished jurists from every Continent. 3. The Conference recalled the long standing commitment of the ICJ to the indivisibility of human rights—economic, social, cultural, Civil and political. That commitment has been evidenced over the years by the Declaration of Delhi 1959, the Law of Lagos, 1961, the Limburg Principles on the. implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1986 and the draft paper for the World Summit on Social Development, 1995, among many other ICJ activities concerned with the vital importance of economic, social and cultural rights for the attainment of the Rule of Law. Reaffirming the Limburg Principles 4. The Conference re-afWrmed the Limburg Principles. It considered regional perspectives on the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights. It examined the means of monitoring the attainment of such rights, including in respect of the compliance by States with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It considered the issues of the implementation of those rights and the justiciability of many of them for legal enforcement. It reviewed the steps which might be taken to achieve global endorsement of ICESCR in a way which promoted at once the universal application of the Covenant and its genuine application as an inXuence upon the conduct of states and others. It reXected upon the need for an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR akin to the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) allowing individual and group communication to the United Nations Committee by individuals who had exhausted domestic remedies and who complained about the failure of Governments to conform to the ICESCR “by all appropriate means” and “to the maximum (of their) available resources,” “progressively” and without discrimination, as the Covenant requires. 5. The participants reminded themselves that, in the words of the Limburg Principles: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are an integral part of international human rights law; The ICESCR is part of the International Bill of Rights; as human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible and interdependent, equal attention and urgent consideration should be given to the implementation, promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights; The achievement of economic , social and cultural rights may be realised in a variety of political settings. There is no single road to their full attainment; Non-governmental Organisations, all sectors of society, Specialised Agencies and OfWcers of the United Nations and individuals have important functions to play in addition to the role of governments in attaining economic, social and cultural rights to their full measure; and trends in international and economic relations should be taken into account in assessing the efforts of the international covenant, to achieve the objectives of the ICESCR. 6. The participants noted that since the Limburg Principles were adopted, the collapse of the command economies in a number of countries of Central and Eastern Europe of Asia and to rapid alteration of the economic arrangements of many countries had altered, in ways which were then unpredictable, the context in which economic, social and cultural rights are to be attained. 7. The participants recalled that the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna had reafWrmed the universality, interdependence and indivisibility of Economic , Social, Cultural, Civil and Political Rights and stressed the need for elaborating an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR aimed at establishing an international complaints system to monitor States compliance with their obligations in this Weld. By stressing both the human right to development and the importance of all human rights in achieving the goal of sustainable development, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action made an important contribution to linking the Human Rights discourse with development. 8. The Conference recalled the reafWrmation by the UN World Summit on Social Development, Copenhagen, 1995, of the universality, indivisibility, interdependence, and inter-relation of all human rights, including the right to development of people...

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