Recent years have seen an expansion in the scale and importance of economic, social, and cultural rights within international law. This has led to the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in December 2008, giving individuals and groups the ability to bring complaints about violations of these rights before the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In this context, this book assesses how effective efforts have been to realise international ESC rights, investigating the contemporary challenges obstructing their...

This book addresses the international legal obligation to protect economic, social, and cultural human rights in times of armed conflict and other situations of armed violence. These rights provide guarantees to individuals of their fundamental rights to work, to an adequate standard of living (food, water, housing), to education, and to health. Armed violence can take many forms, from civil unrest or protest and other forms of internal disturbances and tensions to higher levels of violence that may amount to armed conflict, whether of an international or of a non-international character....

The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty became binding international law in late 2014, and although the text of the treaty is a relatively concise framework for assessing whether to authorize or deny proposed conventional weapons transfers by States Parties, there exists controversy as to the meaning of certain key provisions. Furthermore, the treaty requires a national regulatory body to authorize proposed transfers of conventional weapons covered by the treaty, but does not detail how such a body should be established and how it should effectively function. The Arms Trade Treaty: A Commentary...