and the promotion of the ‘general welfare of society’ restrain the potential rights-interfering actions.35 In essence, the purpose of article 4 ICESCR is to accommodate balances between (or the ‘harmonisation’ of36) various rights, and between rights and ‘the legitimate interests of the community’, 37 and thus to pragmatically resolve tensions within the Covenant itself. 38 In taking such an approach, the ICESCR accommodates situations in which different rights come into conflict with each other or cannot be fully realised in tandem. The Covenant scheme, does not however, allow for a departure from those rights for reasons that are not ‘compatible with the nature of [the] rights’.39 The use of limitations, rather than derogations, is indicative of the ICESCR’s overall approach to emergency management. Through prohibiting derogations, the ICESCR denies the need for exceptional responses to emergency situations. This approach places emergency responses within the ‘ordinary’ scope of application of the ICESCR and does not allow for exceptional emergency responses to situations that threaten security or order.40 As such, it has been argued that ‘the Covenant fully applies in emergency situations’. 41 This approach is often justified by highlighting that the nature of socio-economic rights (requiring access to food, healthcare, work etc.) makes them more, and not less, important in times of emergency. 42 The pattern of allowing everyday flexibility but barring exceptional or emergency responses is reflected in the doctrine of non-retrogression. Since 1991 there has been a doctrine attached to the ICESCR for the purpose of regulating reductions in socio-economic rights protection. The fullest statement of the doctrine is in the General Comment on the right to social security.43 There, the CESCR required States that wished to reduce rights protection (to take a retrogressive step) to prove that the measures are duly ‘justified by reference to the totality of the [ICESCR] rights’, and that the maximum available resources are being used.44 In addition the CESCR noted that it: ‘will look carefully at whether: (a) there was reasonable justification for the action; (b) alternatives were comprehensively examined; (c) there was genuine participation of affected groups … (d) the measures were directly or indirectly discriminatory; (e) the measures will have a sustained impact on the realization of the right to social security, an unreasonable impact on acquired social security rights or whether an 35 ICESCR (n 4) article 4. 36 Alston and Quinn (n 28) 194. 37 ibid. 38 CESCR, General Comment 14: The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) (UN Doc E/C12/2000/4) para 28. See also; Sepúlveda (n 28) 278. ICESCR (n 4) article 4. Sepúlveda suggests the synonym ‘essence’ here to imply that measures should not be contrary to the ‘essence’ of the Covenant rights; Sepúlveda (n 28) 281. 39 Alston and Quinn (n 28) 202. Except, as Sepúlveda notes, ‘where such a situation is “genuinely synonymous” with general welfare of society’; Sepúlveda (n 28) 282. 40 Sepúlveda (n 28) 296. See also; Statement of the CESCR on ‘The World Summit For Social Development And The International Covenant On Economic, Social And Cultural Rights’; CESCR, General Comment 3 (n 2) 11–12. 41 CESCR, ‘Report on the Forty-Fourth and Forty-Fifth Sessions’ (2011) UN Doc E/2011/22 para 150. See further; Amrei Müller, The Relationship between Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and International Humanitarian Law: An Analysis of Health Related Issues in Non-International Armed Conflicts (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2013) 139. 42 43 CESCR, General Comment 19 (n 3) 42. 44 ibid. 5