The Collective Complaints System of the European Social Charter: Interpretative Methods of the European Committee of Social Rights

The system of collective complaints established by a Protocol to the European Social Charter has now been in force for a decade. The Protocol gives the European Committee on Social Rights (ECSR) the competence to examine complaints by social partner organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The procedural aspects of the system have been criticised, particularly the lack of remedial powers and the significant role played by the Committee of Ministers. Nonetheless, it is important to examine the practice of the ECSR in deciding collective complaints, which reveals that the ECSR has developed considerable economic and social rights jurisprudence. It has articulated and elaborated on the values underlying the Charter. It has also employed techniques of reasoning drawn in part from the European Court of Human Rights. The collective complaints system can therefore be regarded as a quasi-judicial process-----the first in international law specifically for economic and social rights.