[C T I i ,41-" 1 1 Due to the seriousness of the situation and lack of any gender - sensitive approach to the current crisis policy within the State party, the Committee recommends that all important policymakers in Greece, including the European Union institutions and the IMF, cooperate in setting up an observatory to fully evaluate the impact on women of the many measures taken during the economic and financial crisis. Furthermore, a comprehensive gender equality policy should be developed in order to respond to the crisis and make sure that the obligations under the Convention and the aim and spirit of the Treaty of the functioning of the European Union, which requires that in "all its activities the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women," can be fully implemented by the State party. 22 The foregoing pronouncements illustrate that any state attempting to restructure its growing public debt, which was caused by poor public and private sector management, at the expense of economic and social rights. As such, the public resources available for social expenditure decline substantially. This can lead to the decrease of level of effective protection of economic and social rights.23 As a consequence, states cannot provide an equal level of access to health care, social housing, water, and food. Access to university education is thereafter often subjected to increasing tuition fees, and there are often more pupils per class in primary and secondary education. All in all, the enjoyment of economic and social rights and economic crises are directly intertwined and correlated.24 III. CLARIFYING OBLIGATIONS OF TERRITORIAL STATES UNDER SOCIOECONOMIC RIGHTS States are often described as primary duty-holders in international human rights law. Traditionally, states are obliged to protect human rights within their territory. This article, therefore, first examines obligations of territorial states in relation to economic and social rights. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) provides in Article 2 (1) that states shall undertake "steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available 22 Id. at Para. 40. 23 Ariaranga G. Pillay, Open letter to state parties, May 16, 2012, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/LetterCESCRtoSP1 6.05.12.pdf. 24 See generally Sabine Michalowski, Sovereign Debt and Social Rights-Legal Reflections on a Difficult Relationship, 8 HUMAN RIGHTS L. REV., 35-68 (2008). See also Christian Barry, Sovereign Debt, Human Rights, and Policy Conditionality, 19 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, 282305 (2011).