Events

20 October 2022| 10:00 – 16:30| UN House Brussels Blvd. du Regent 37-40, 1000 Brussels – Online

Social Platform in collaboration with The Europe Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will host a day workshop to increase awareness of international ESCR international law and mechanisms to protect them. The workshop will provide an opportunity for civil society organizations to identify how regional actors may draw on the international human rights system in their advocacy for more efficient and sustainable EU-level policy in the area of social rights. The workshop will support and build skills to advocate for inclusive social policy in Europe based on social rights, eliminate poverty and ensure inclusion of all groups including women, young persons, persons with disabilities, children, and migrant, asylum seeking and refugee persons.

Read the draft agenda here

The methodology will be of a roundtable in which participants will interact with presenters and facilitators though guiding questions and discussions on the topics chosen for the workshop.

Please register here to participate. The workshop is open to Social Platform members and allies.

For any question please contact Robert Ranson at robert.ranson@socialplatform.org

Background

Society in Europe and the European Union have publicly reaffirmed their commitment with a sustainable, fair and inclusive social Europe. The recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic and the response to the crisis caused by the armed conflicts affecting the European region demand continuous, urgent and sustained actions to address prevailing inequalities, impoverishment, and economic setbacks for people in the crisis periods.

Civil society continues to call for stronger action to eliminate child poverty, ensure inclusion of people with disabilities, eliminate inequality between women and men, and discrimination on the basis of sex and gender orientation, respect and protect the rights of migrant, asylum-seekers and refugee people and ensure that public agendas recognize and include the rights of youth and older persons. Social Platform member organizations also strive for wide participation in the regional European level, and to use key advocacy opportunities for the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) in Europe.

The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan of 2021 and the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe are two major policy developments in recent years showing that inclusion and social rights are priorities for people in Europe. International human rights law, in particular the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals encompass concrete measures to guide social policy and achieve social inclusion. In 2022, the President of the European Commission declared that the Sustainable Development Goals should guide the policies and programmes across the Commission.

The protection of ESCR is one of the priorities of the UN Human Rights Office, which provides States and other stakeholders with technical advise and tools to accomplish human rights. This ensures that measures taken to address inequalities are in line with States’ obligations under international law, address the situation of persons in situations of marginalization, and contribute to build sustainable and more resilient societies.

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