50-year anniversary since the UK ratified ICESCR

Today marks 50 years since the UK ratified the United Nations International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

This means that the UK must uphold the various human rights guaranteed in the treaty which allow us to live full and dignified lives. It includes rights to: fair working conditions; social security; an adequate standard of living (including food, clothing, housing and living conditions); health; education and participation in sports.

Despite the UK signing up 50 years ago, LGBTQIA+ people still face various barriers to having our ICESCR human rights realised. We still face discrimination at work, poor living standards, poor mental health outcomes and little to no access to trans healthcare. This should not be the case as ICESCR contains a non-discrimination provision whereby all rights in the treaty must be upheld without discriminating based on identity, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity through the ‘other status’ provision.

That’s why in December 2024, we, alongside our LGBTQIA+ partner organisations, submitted a report to the UN Committee on ICESCR (PDF) detailing the various ways in which our rights are not being upheld. We also presented these findings in-person at the UN in Geneva in February 2025.

The UN Committee subsequently produced recommendations (otherwise known as Concluding Observations) to the UK, including Scotland, for the first time specifically on ways to progress LGBTQIA+ people’s ICESCR rights. You can read our blog on this here.

It is our hope that both the Scottish Government and UK Government will implement these recommendations in full to realise our ICESCR rights. However, without full incorporation of these rights in our domestic law, we cannot fully rely on them as our courts and public bodies are not obliged to take them into account when making decisions about our lives.

The Scottish Government has previously committed to bringing these rights into Scots Law through a Human Rights Scotland Bill. We hope a Bill will be presented in the new Scottish Parliament as soon as possible to strengthen the protection of all of our ICESCR rights in Scotland.