Abstract

The European Social Charter is devoted to implement at European level the values and purposes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a complement of the European Convention of Human Rights, it also epitomizes the principle of the 'indivisibility' of human rights. In contrast with these aspirations, the personal scope of the Charter appears oddly narrow, being the protection accorded applicable to foreigners "only in so far as they are nationals of other Parties lawfully resident or working regularly within the territory of the Party concerned" (see the Appendix to the Charter). The paper critically analyses this restriction, highlighting the more flexible approach followed by the European Committee of Social Rights in several fundamental cases decided under the collective complaints procedure. The conclusion is that, enduring the lack of formal revisions, only a widespread acceptance and an effective implementation of Committee's "jurisprudence" in national legal systems could avoid a potential marginalization of the Charter in the European multilevel constitutionalism.