E/C.12/2015/1
developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO), and ensure the protection of this
core content at all times.
3.
Furthermore, one of the targets under proposed goal 1 of the post-2015 sustainable
development goals is the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection
systems and measures for all, including floors (see A/68/970 and Corr.1).
Objective
4.
Following up on its call for States to explicitly align the sustainable development
goals, as well as the indicators and benchmarks to meet them, with human rights principles
and standards, including those on freedom from discrimination, equality between men and
women, participation and inclusion, and transparency and accountability,22 the Committee
hereby reiterates the mutually reinforcing nature of its general comment No. 19 on the right
to social security and of ILO Recommendation No. 202 on social protection floors.
5.
The definition of the right to social security contained in general comment No.19
refers to three basic elements:
(a)
The concept of social security as a human right and an economic and social
necessity for development and progress;
(b)
The reaffirmation of the redistributive character of social security and its role
in promoting social inclusion;
(c)
The overall and primary responsibility of the State for the realization of the
right to social security.
6.
These elements are integral to the nationally defined set of basic social security
guarantees of social protection floors aimed at ensuring human dignity and preventing or
alleviating poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion. In addition, the social protection
floors element of ensuring availability, continuity and access to public services such as
water, sanitation, health, education and family-focused social work is derived from several
rights enshrined in the Covenant.
Core obligations
7.
Social protection floors call for a set of basic social security guarantees that ensure
universal access to essential health services and basic income security. These guarantees
can be materialized through transfers in cash and in kind, for example through child
benefits, income support benefits combined with employment guarantees for the workingage poor, tax-financed universal pensions for older persons and benefits for persons with
disabilities and persons who have lost the main breadwinner in the family.
8.
Pursuant to general comment No. 19, these guarantees constitute the core obligation
of States to ensure access to social security by providing, together with adequate access to
essential services, a minimum level of benefits to all individuals and families to enable
them to acquire at least essential health care, basic shelter and housing, water and
sanitation, food and the most basic forms of education. The reference to “all” encapsulates
the human rights principle of universality and that every individual matters. Similarly,
2
2
Letter by the Chairperson of the Committee on the post-2015 development agenda dated 30
November 2012.