Acknowledgments

This Handbook would not have been possible without the generous and willing assistance of a constellation of people around the world who believe in economic, social and cultural rights, and who gave generously of their time, knowledge and experience at every stage of the Handbook’s development. There is not enough space to list everyone who contributed.

The Project Team

Among the people whose contributions I would like to acknowledge by name are the project staff at AAAS and HURIDOCS, who in addition to reviewing and commenting on the Handbook as it progressed through various drafts, have organised and implemented the overall project of which it is a part. Project staff include Manuel Guzman and Bert Verstappen at HURIDOCS, and Audrey Chapman, Sage Russell, Stephen Hansen, Matthew Zimmerman and Eric Wallace in the Science and Human Rights Program at AAAS. At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, where I first heard her speak, Audrey Chapman was already setting the stage for the project that has nurtured this Handbook. Dr. Chapman invited me to join in project planning and implementation and has given inspiration and guidance at many important landmarks along the way.

Sage Russell has been an active, skilled and encouraging editor, who contributed considerably to the shape and spirit of the text. In countless instances throughout the volume, she has also contributed directly to its content. Matt Zimmerman, in addition to his fine work on the layout of the Handbook, co-authored Annex G dealing with the uses and perils of the Internet.

The ESCR Project Advisory Committee

Both the Handbook and the project of which it is a part have benefitted greatly from the steady support and guidance of a distinguished international Advisory Committee, whose members share expertise in and a deep commitment to economic, social and cultural human rights. Advisory Committee members took a strong interest in the development of the Handbook, providing helpful ideas, suggestions and encouragement, and reviewing and commenting on numerous drafts. Their names and professional affiliations are listed below.

• Supang Chantavanich, Director, Asian Research Centre for Migration, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
  
  
• Rebecca Cook, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  
  
• Virginia Dandan, Professor, College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, the Philippines; Chair, UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
  
  
• Clarence Dias, President, International Center for Law in Development, New York, NY, United States • Héctor Faúndez Ledesma, Director, Centre for Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela
  
  
• Tokunbo Ige, Legal Officer for Africa, International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, Switzerland
  
  
• Miloon Kothari, Convener, Housing and Land Rights Committee, Habitat International Coalition, Delhi, India
  
  
• Rolf Künnemann, Secretary General, FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), Heidelberg, Germany
  
  
• Janek Kuczkiewicz, Deputy Director, Department of Trade Union Rights, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Brussels, Belgium
  
  
• Carmel Shalev, Director, Unit for Health Rights and Ethics, Gertner Institute for Health Policy Research, Tel Hashomer, Israel; Member, UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
  
  
• Sigrun Skogly, Lecturer in Law, Department of Law, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

I wish to recognise the special contributions made by Sigrun Skogly and Miloon Kothari, who willingly reviewed drafts, answered questions and helped to locate important background materials. Miloon generously shared his considerable wisdom and knowledge gained as a longtime NGO advocate for housing rights before the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Sigrun drew upon her experience as a university teacher and as an advocate on social and economic rights issues. For his early encouragement and advice on two elements I added to the Handbook to enhance its clarity and usefulness for grassroots NGOs, I wish also to thank Clarence Dias.

I would also like to acknowledge two individuals who are not formal members of the Advisory Committee, but who have made valuable contributions to the work of the Committee and to the Project that it oversees. Abdullahi An-Na’im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law School in Atlanta, Georgia, is a former Advisory Committee member who helped to shape the ESCR Project in its early stages. More recently, Professor Alicia Ely Yamin of the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York has participated actively in the work of the ESCR Advisory Committee in her capacity as member of the AAAS Committee that oversees the work of the Science and Human Rights Program.

Advisors from the CESCR and Its Secretariat

I appreciate the assistance provided by Alex Tikhonov, Kitty Arambulo and Paivikki Aaku of the Secretariat of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). I am especially indebted to Kitty Arambulo, who reviewed the sections dealing with the work of the Committee and was always ready to answer questions and clarify the sometimes mysterious workings of the United Nations human rights monitoring system. On the Committee itself, I wish to thank in particular Professor Virginia Bonoan-Dandan, its Chair, and Professor Paul Hunt. Paul Hunt reviewed the sections of the Handbook on the work of the CESCR and offered many insightful and practical suggestions. Virginia Dandan, as a member of the Project’s Advisory Committee since its inception, has been a valuable source of support to the Project because of her strong and steady belief in the value of what we are striving to accomplish. Virginia Dandan and Paul Hunt epitomise the openness of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to input from NGOs.

Other Valued Advisors from NGO, NGI and Academic Communities

Finally, I would like to recognise the contributions of people from around the world who held the Handbook up to the light of their own experience in civil society and provided candid reactions and recommendations. This Handbook is written for NGOs, and it attempts to present a picture of reality as actually experienced by NGOs, rather than an idealised image of how the system is supposed to work. The volume is able to take a different approach than would be appropriate in an official UN document.

NGO focus groups in Canada and the Philippines met to discuss the draft Handbook and individual reviewers in South Africa contributed critiques and insights as well. A full day focus group, which produced many recommendations for the Handbook, was held in Ottawa in September 1998, at the headquarters of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). To ensure a diversity of perspectives, I invited individuals from NGOs and institutions focused on both international and national social development issues as well as human rights. I wish to reiterate my thanks to the many participants, as well as to those who co-operated with project colleagues during the related review processes in South Africa and the Philippines.

Two Canadian reviewers who provided both advice and important resource documents were Bruce Porter of the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) and Rob Robertson, Counsel for IDRC. Also at IDRC, I was grateful for the collegial support of its President, Maureen O’Neil, and for the advice that David Brooks, Daniel Buckles and others gave respecting the relationships among economic, social and cultural rights, natural resource sharing and the environment. The opportunity to participate in an IDRC project on these questions and another on intellectual property and the protection of traditional knowledge (as part of the global Crucible Project) helped me to refine a number of perspectives for the Handbook. IDRC staff also aided my efforts to meet with lawyers and legal workers working with NGOs in Capetown, South Africa in July 1998. Their reflections on using law and community organising to promote economic, social and cultural rights were both informative and inspirational.

For their location and verification of documentation and illustrative examples of NGO work, I wish to recognise the kind assistance of personnel from the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) and CERA in Canada and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) in Argentina. At CELS, Juana Kweitel especially provided many timely details on NGO activities promoting implementation of economic and social rights at the international level and through national courts. Over the years of developing the Handbook (and previously) I learned many important things about UN procedures from Mona Rishmawi and other colleagues at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. I learned much about pan-European economic and social rights issues from Nathalie Prouvez, also of the ICJ. Publications by Tom Kenny provided additional helpful detail and analysis on economic and social rights protections in Europe. I also benefitted from e-mail exchanges with him regarding the UN context. Others whose contributions were helpful at important stages included Geraldine Van Bueren, Director of the Programme on the International Rights of the Child at the University of London, Gerit-jan van Oven, Member of the Netherlands Parliament, and Marjolein Brouwer, formerly on staff at the UN in Geneva and more recently with NOVIB.

Excerpts from a draft of the Handbook, including the first NGO Checklist (in Annex F) and one of the fictional case scenarios (in Annex G) were used as training tools during two large NGO workshops at the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference, in May 1999. The occasion also permitted assessment of the practical merits of the material. I wish to thank three well-versed individuals who ably worked with me to facilitate small group discussions during the workshops: Bruce Abramson, Maria Green and Brigit Toebes. Additional thanks are owed to Bruce Abramson for a written commentary that he subsequently conveyed concerning the draft excerpts.

Over the past couple of years, several colleagues have been participating in writing other kinds of manuals focused on economic, social and cultural rights. Through discussions with these colleagues, I have made a conscious effort to try to ensure that there would be a minimum of overlap in our varied efforts. Though I have not had an opportunity to see the various draft publications, it appears that each of the other pending resources will be very worthwhile in its own right, serving core purposes different from those of the current Handbook.

Support for the Handbook

This Handbook would not have been possible without the generosity of the Ford Foundation, the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation. We are grateful to them for their financial and moral support of the ESCR Project, and their patience during the time it took to turn the Handbook from an idea into a reality.

Dedication

For a guidebook, it seems inappropriate to insert a special page to announce a dedication from the author; yet a dedication is warranted. I wish to dedicate the Handbook to those who have held fast to the idea that our shared responsibility for the basic needs and rights of others does not stop at our individual or national doorsteps. Among those who taught me such lessons by their words and actions were the late Walter S. Tarnopolsky, a renowned law professor, Justice of Appeal, member of the UN Human Rights Committee and mentor to many. As always, important lessons on using one’s opportunities to fulfil community and global responsibilities continue to be imparted by my father, Robert D. McChesney, my mother, Isabelle Orton McChesney, and admired members of our extended (and extensive) families.

Allan McChesney
Ottawa, Canada