The Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights via the Principle of Indivisibility of Human Rights – An Illustration: The Right to Food

Phrased in idealistic terms and benefiting from positive and fastidious correlative obligations, the economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) – or the so-called “claim-rights” – have long been regarded as a “poor relation” of their elder “brothers”, i.e. the civil and political rights (CPR) or “liberty-rights”, which are surrounded by an aura of historic authority and judicial force. These rights have often been pushed by doctrine towards the field of legal rhetoric. However, jurisprudence has proved that, despite such criticism, ESCR may well be subject to judicial control, either by the indivisibility principle of the human rights or by interpreting correlative obligations. The article aims to illustrate the above mentioned reality through the analysis of the case-law generated by a right which, at the first glance, seems hardly enforceable before the courts: the right to food.