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22 Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/hrlr22 and id is 1 raw text is: Human Rights Law Review, 2022,22,1-21 https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngabO2l Advance Access Publication Date: 2 August 2021 Article Revisiting the Preamble of the European Social Charter: Paper Tiger or Blessing in Disguise? Nikolaos A. Papadopoulos* ABSTRACT The European Social Charter has recently received increased attention due to the evolu- tion of its monitoring mechanism and the need to address a multitude of contemporary challenges to socio-economic rights. Although the treaty's preamble has played a crucial role in the interpretation of substantive provisions and in shaping state obligations, little attention has been paid to the way in which the preamble has defined the fundamental lines of the 'jurisprudence' of the Charter's monitoring body. The European Committee of Social Rights has deduced from the Charter's preamble several important general prin- ciples for the protection of socio-economic rights, on which it grounds its interpretation. This article analyses these principles and evaluates their effects in the relevant practice. The findings suggest that the Charter's preamble serves different purposes and performs multiple functions in international law, thus challenging the common assumption that human rights treaty preambles are empty phrases of a merely ceremonial nature. KEYWORDS: treaty interpretation, preamble, international monitoring, economic and social rights, European Committee of Social Rights, effectiveness and progressive reali- sation 1. INTRODUCTION Treaty preambles are generally considered to be preliminary or introductory statements preceding the operative part of the treaty. Preambles set out the general context or reasons for adopting the treaty, as well as the intentions of the contracting parties.2 While the question ofthe legal value or status of preambles has not (yet) been resolved, * PhD Candidate, Department of International and European Law, Maastricht University, Netherlands- International Consultant, Council of Europe Department of the European Social Charter-Associate Researcher, European University Cyprus. The article develops ideas of the author's ongoing PhD project. The views expressed are personal only. Email: nikos.papadopoulosca~maastrichtuniversity.nl. The comple- tion ofthis article was funded by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) under its scholarship programme in cooperation with the National Bank of Greece (NBG). 1 Suy, 'Le Prdambule' inYakpo and Boumedra (eds), LiberAmicorum: Judge Mohammed Bedjaoui (1999) 253. 2 Voermans, Stremler and Cliteur, Constitutional Preambles: A Comparative Analysis (2017). © The Author(s) [2021]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1 For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com