A/HRC/25/50/Add.1 (3)); the advancement of conditions of employment (art. 22(1)); and social security (art. 22(5)). Various rights correspond to these obligations, including the rights to equality of all Greeks (art. 4), social, economic and political participation (art. 5), information (art. 5A), petition (art. 10), peaceful assembly (art. 11), free public education (art. 16(2)), property (art. 17(2)), health care (art. 21(3)), work (art. 22(1)), social security (art. 22(5)) and freedom to unionize (art. 23). Article 21.4 specifies that “the acquisition of a home by the homeless or those inadequately sheltered shall constitute an object of special State care”. Article 25, paragraph 1 explicitly refers to the principle of the welfare State and underscores that all public institutions are obliged to ensure the effective implementation of these rights. 7. These provisions are complemented by standards set out in several core international and regional human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the European Social Charter, to which Greece is a party.2 8. Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Greece is obliged to realize the rights enshrined therein progressively, using its maximum available resources. This requires it to adopt and implement laws and policies that aim to achieve incremental improvements in universal access to basic goods and services, such as health care, education, housing, social security and cultural life. While it does enjoy a “margin of appreciation within which to set (its) national, economic, social and cultural policies”, including during austerity, it has the duty to “avoid at all times taking decisions which might lead to the denial or infringement of economic, social and cultural rights”.3 9. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has emphasized that austerity and other adjustment policies adopted by States in times of economic crisis must comply with obligations derived from the Covenant. In particular, any measure that could impede the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights must (a) be temporary and restricted to the period of crisis; (b) strictly necessary and proportionate; (c) not be discriminatory and take into account all possible alternatives, including fiscal measures, to ensure the necessary measures to mitigate inequalities that may arise in times of crisis; and (d) identify the minimum core content of the rights enshrined in the Covenant, or a social protection floor, as developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO),4 and ensure the protection of this core content at all times.5 10. In addition, States bear the burden of establishing that austerity measures have been introduced only after the most careful consideration of all other less restrictive alternatives.6 States cannot therefore justify austerity measures simply by referring to the need to achieve fiscal discipline and savings; they need to show why the austerity measures were necessary for the protection of the totality of the rights provided for in the Covenant.7 2 3 4 5 6 7 Greece is not a party to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the International Convention on the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Optional Protocols to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure. See the letter dated 16 May 2012 addressed by the Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, available from http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCESCR% 2fSUS%2f6395&Lang=en. Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202). Ibid. E/2013/82, para. 18. Ibid., para 16. See also E/C.12/2001/1, para. 10. 5