UN Rights expert calls for incorporation of economic and social rights in Scotland

UN representative Virginia Brás Gomes visited Scotland for three days to share her expertise around the recognition of economic and social rights.

Ms Brás Gomes – chair of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – spoke to a large meeting of representatives from the legal sector, government and civil society around how best to implement economic and social rights for all, including the right to food, social security, housing and health.  She urged Scotland to incorporate these rights into Scots law.

During her visit to Scotland, Ms Brás Gomes also visited Leith in Edinburgh to meet a group of local residents who have been taking part in a pioneering project to realise their housing rights. The Housing Rights in Practice project, which began in 2015, has seen local people working together to monitor housing conditions, assess where these fall short of international human rights standards, and work with the local authority to secure housing improvements. The project is supported by the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Edinburgh Tenants Federation and Belfast-based Participation and the Practice of Rights.

You can read more about this visit here.

 

 

Image credit: Timothy West, Flickr