On March 18, France ratified the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In so doing, the French government sided with Belgium, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Slovakia—European countries that had already ratified the covenant. Even in countries like Mali and the Maldives, citizens have been empowered and have been offered action perspectives to stand up themselves for their economic, social and cultural rights through individual complaints submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The Netherlands lags behind

The Dutch government has been studying the ratification for years. A motion proposed by member of the Senate Tineke Strik dated March 18, 2014—which was signed by almost all of the major political parties but was left to the Senate to be decided upon by the former minister of security and justice, Ivo Opstelten—called on the government to speed up its decision to ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR. The human rights policy paper "Respect and Rights for Everyone" of June 2013, reported on the study of the impact of ratification in the short term.

More than a year after the Strik motion, however, the government still hasn’t come up with a concrete answer or roadmap. The inquiry report on the ratification of the protocol by the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, was sent to the House of Representatives by the government without any further explanation.

This is odd because—and this argument was also brought forward by the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights during the first Human Rights Dialogue held in the House of Representatives on January 26, 2015—in light of the decentralization with regard to the Youth Act, the Participation Act and the Social Support Act, ratification has only become more logical and relevant at this very moment. In this way, citizens would be offered a real chance to have local welfare services scrutinized.

The Netherlands Committee of Jurists for Human Rights calls on the Dutch government to finally ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR.