violations of these rights. 98 This polarisation leaves the CESCR’s newly ‘reformed’ emergency regime arguably less able to deal with cross-cutting emergencies than before. This change of approach towards retrogressive measures also has potential to damage the key progressive realisation obligation of the ICESCR. This obligation has been thought of as a ratchet, requiring that socio-economic rights standards are raised ever higher, with slips in those standards (retrogression) only permissible in limited circumstances and to a limited extent. In this sense, the protection of ICESCR rights in doctrine and in practice has relied heavily upon the ‘precommitence’ of States. 99 Yet under the new regime, with fewer and weaker conditions imposed on potential backwards steps, the capacity of non-retrogression to prevent change has been substantially reduced. Progressions in rights standards may no longer be so difficult to reverse and hard fought improvements may be less enduring. C. Inadequate safeguards If the regime of emergency retrogression is to be retained by the CESCR, significant safeguards should be built in to it. For example, at the moment, the procedural requirements for declaring, the boundaries of, and the process for ending a period of emergency under the ICESCR are manifestly unclear. The question of what constitutes an emergency, and who is to declare it, is not addressed by the CESCR. 100 This is a clearly crucial gateway that States wishing to take advantage of increased emergency accommodation must pass through. The CESCR in its Letter seems to highlight the important features of the 2007/8 emergency as being the existence of ‘economic and financial crises, and a lack of growth’.101 This does not amount to generalizable advice as to what constitutes an emergency. If the 2012 version of the nonretrogression doctrine is retained, the CESCR should perhaps follow the Human Rights Committee in issuing a full General Comment on the issue,102 be more rigorous in defining an ‘emergency’, and offer clear guidance on whether emergencies are to be declared by States or the CESCR in future. Similarly, the CESCR’s brief Letter offers no guidance on when and how emergency situations are concluded. Is a further letter to be expected from the CESCR on the conclusion of the financial and economic crises, for example? How is the existence of the crisis itself, to be separated from the effects of the crisis, and which should determine the conclusion of the situation? Answers to these questions are crucial if the increased crisis flexibilities are to be themselves to be sufficiently circumscribed. Nor does the new regime outlined by the CESCR provide guidance on the ex post facto review of the measures taken during the crisis. If the Letter and its emergency accommodation model of retrogression is to be retained, greater provision should be made in This stereotyping is at odds with the UN’s various food security and human security initiatives; ‘UN Trust Fund for Human Security’ <http://unocha.org/humansecurity/> accessed 30 September 2014; ‘Global Food Security’ <http://www.un-foodsecurity.org> accessed 30 September 2014. 98 99 This strategy partly mitigates the impact of ‘fear’ upon the decision-maker; Posner and Vermeule (n 7) 639–40. Prior to 2012, the CESCR seems only to have expressly characterised three situations as ‘emergencies’ in relation to water, housing and malnutrition in prisons, but had offered no guidance on the factors that constituted the situations as such; See the Concluding Observations on Yemen (E/C.12/1/Add.92, para 19), Canada (E/C.12/1/Add.31, para 46; E/C.12/MDG/CO/2, para 62), Madagascar (E/C.12/MDG/CO/2, para 28). 100 101 Letter to States (n.1, Annex I), 5.. 102 Human Rights Committee, General Comment 5: Derogation of Rights (Article 4) (HRI/GEN/1/Rev9 (Vol I) 1981); Human Rights Committee, General Comment 29: States Of Emergency (Article 4) (n 70). 13