The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights can:
1. Examine your complaint about a possible human rights violation
It can do this in the states which have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its Optional Protocol. France is included among these states.
If your complaint is accepted, the Committee can determine whether French state authorities have violated your human rights. If the Committee concludes that there has been a violation of your rights, it can recommend that the State should provide you with a remedy for that violation. The State is not legally obliged to comply with these recommendations. However, they will usually be observed, because the State will have to report back to the Committee on how the remedy has been implemented.
2. Request interim measures to prevent irreversible harm
The Committee may request that interim measures should be adopted in the interests of the parties, or in the interests of the proper conduct of proceedings. You may ask the Committee to request measures at any given time once it has received your application. The purpose of interim measures is to prevent the risk of irreparable harm pending the examination of your complaint by the Committee.
Interim measures requested by the Committee are not binding, even though the failure of the State to implement such measures is a breach of its obligation to follow the process of individual complaints in good faith.
example In housing rights matters, the Committee may request that the State suspend the eviction order of the applicant pending the examination of the complaint.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights cannot:
The Committee can only carry out those tasks, which it is allowed to do under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its Optional Protocol. As an international body, it has very specific functions and does not have the same power as higher courts in France. Because of this, and also because its decisions are not binding, it cannot:
- require the State to give you a specific amount of money as compensation
- examine complaints about the actions of private companies and persons
- revoke or change the decisions of courts or state institutions
- re-examine the evidence of national court cases
- punish state officials or private individuals
- annul or amend French laws