Common Challenges for Socio-Economic Human Rights and Essential Public Services Provision
Hesselman, Hallo de Wolf, Toebes, 'Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision', 1-19, Routledge, Abingdon 2017
University of Groningen Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 12/2020
Posted: 16 May 2020 Last revised: 24 Jun 2021
Date Written: 2016
Abstract
Access to essential public services, including safe drinking water, health care, energy, roads, transportation, sanitation or environmental services is a key condition for leading a life in human dignity and well-being. Access to basic services in a reliable, affordable and adequate manner lies at the core of fostering healthy, inclusive and sustainable societies. This chapter actively engages with the nexus between essential public services provision (EPSP) and human rights protection, with a special emphasis on socio-economic rights law. This first chapter identifies practical common challenges for EPSP, while the last chapter presents a framework for understanding how socio-economic human rights guideposts can help inform better, more inclusive EPSP.
In this introduction, we focus specifically on extrapolating and situating the various common challenges for EPSP and ESR enjoyment. Section 1 first tries to define what "EPSP" means. Section 2 discusses the need to balance a range of interests in EPSP and to ensure the prioritization of EPSP and ESR in decision-making. Section 3 focuses on the need for sufficient and continuous resources mobilization and allocation to ensure adequate service levels for all. Section 4 focuses on the concepts of 'universal access' and the need for 'inclusivity'. Section 5 discusses the needs for adequate (rights-based) checks and balances in EPSP.
The chapter develops the following working definition of EPSP: "Essential public services are those services that perform an activity or provide a good or service without which it would be difficult to realize/protect a vital public interest in society, such as the protection of public health, general well-being, including an adequate standard of living, public order, or poverty alleviation.
Essential public services are requisite for the fulfillment of essential individual interests within the wider society as well, including those phrased as individual human rights and the values that such rights protect (e.g. non-discrimination and protection of the vulnerable, human dignity, subsistence rights, 'liberty, equality and solidarity', and the free development of the human personality).
Essential services therefore require availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adequate quality of services for all members of the public. In case private actors are involved in the delivery of the service, particular regulatory acts by States vis-a-vis private actors may be required to ensure such access".
Keywords: Socio-Economic Human Rights, ICESCR, Social Rights, International Human Rights Law, Right to Health, Right to Water, Right to Energy, Right to Education, Human Rights, Essential Public Services, Right to Basic Services, Business and Human Rights
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