E UNITED NATIONS Economic and Social Distr, GENERAL Council E/C.12/2007/1 10 May 2007 Original: ENGLISH Meaning of Maximum COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL RIGHTS Thirty-eighth session 30 April - 18 May 2007 AN under article 2(1) in the context communications procedure. SOCIAL EVALUATION OF THE OBLIGATION TO TAKE STEPS TO THE “MAXIMUM OF AVAILABLE RESOURCES” UNDER AN OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE COVENANT Statement 1. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights welcomes the decision Available Resources by the Human Rights Council to draft an optional protocol to the Covenant. Such a protocol granting it authority to consider individual and collective communications will assist the Committee in monitoring the implementation of the Covenant by complementing the periodic review of reports, thus strengthening the Committee’s interpretation of the Covenant, of an individual 3 Having already examined the terms of article 2(1) in its General Comment No. 3, the Committee reiterates that in order to achieve progressively the full realization of the Covenant, States parties must take deliberate, concrete and targeted steps within a reasonably short time after the Covenant’s entry into force for the States concerned. The steps should include “all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures”. In addition to legislation, the Committee understands the term “appropriate means” to include the provision of judicial or other remedies, where appropriate, as well as “administrative, financial, educational and social measures" (General Comment No. 3, para. 7, General Comment No. 9, paras. 3-5, 7). 4, The “availability of resources”, although an important qualifier to the obligation to take steps, does not alter the immediacy of the obligation, nor 2 The Committee is aware of States parties’ interest in obtaining further clarification on how it would apply the obligation under article 2(1) “to take steps... to the maximum of its available resources” to can resource constraints alone justify inaction. Where the available resources are demonstrably inadequate, the obligation remains for a State party to ensure the widest possible enjoyment of economic, social and achieve progressively the full realization of the rights cultural recognized in the Covenant.1 Of particular relevance is how the Committee would examine communications The Committee has already emphasized that, even in times of severe resource constraints, States parties must protect the most disadvantaged and concerning this obligation, while fully respecting the rights under the prevailing circumstances. authority vested in relevant State organs to adopt what it considers to be its most appropriate policies and to allocate resources accordingly. On the basis of marginalized members or groups of society by adopting relatively low-cost targeted programmes. its practice under the periodic reporting process, the Committee in this present statement seeks to clarify 5; The undertaking by a State party to use “the maximum” of its available resource towards fully how it realizing 58 cure ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS HANDBOOK might consider States Parties’ obligations the provisions of the Covenant entitles it