Stranieri e diritti nel sistema della Carta sociale europea

The European SocialCharter is devoted to implement at European level the values and purposes of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights. As a complement of the European Conventionof Human Rights, it also epitomizes the principle of the ‘indivisibility’ of humanrights. In contrast with these aspirations, the personal scope of the Charter appearsoddly narrow, being the protection accorded applicable to foreigners “only in so faras they are nationals of other Parties lawfully resident or working regularly withinthe territory of the Party concerned” (see the Appendix to the Charter). The papercritically analyses this restriction, highlighting the more flexible approach followedby the European Committee of Social Rights in several fundamental cases decidedunder the collective complaints procedure. The conclusion is that, enduring the lackof formal revisions, only a widespread acceptance and an effective implementationof Committee’s “jurisprudence” in national legal systems could avoid a potentialmarginalization of the Charter in the European multilevel constitutionalism.