Abstract

The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESC) entered into force on 5 May 2013, generally and for Spain, thereby establishing, as an essential procedure, the filing of communications by individuals or groups of individuals claiming to be victims of a violation by a State Party of any one of the rights set forth in the Covenant. The principle of indivisibility and interdependence between all human rights acts as its supporting pillar for the correction of the discriminatory protective regime brought about in 1966 by the _twin covenants _(International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). The process through which the Protocol to the ICESC came into being, however, did not ignore the insistent debate arising from the _justiciability _of economic, social and cultural rights, which has an effect on the limits set for the monitoring procedures provided forth therein in order to ensure compliance with the rights protected by the Covenant; that is, the filing of _individual communications_, its main _leitmotiv_, of _communications between States _and _inquiry _into grave or systematic violations of this range of rights, as well as the complementary mechanisms of _international assistance and cooperation _of the trust fund in particular. _Published online_: 11 December 2017.