BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

payments, which must be carried out through payment of taxes or through specific contributions, as long as they proportionate to the economic capacity of the taxpayers. Eighteen years after the publication of the Universal Declaration, the UN adopted the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the ICESCR. Such Convention, of undoubted mandatory nature for signatory States, brings a very important Article 9, which recognizes social security as a human right: The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of every person to social security, including social insurance. Conversely, particularly significant is to note how Brazil has welcomed such Convention. The Presidential Decree n. 591, 06. 07. 1992 brings a gross error of translation precisely with such article The Decree established that: “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of every person to social security, including social security”. The translation makes the mistake of translating “social security” into “previdência social,” 6 and then makes a new mistake in assuming that “social insurance” and “previdência social” are different things. The correct translation, therefore, is the one indicated above: “… social security, including social security”. A same gross error, by the way, had already been committed in Decree No. 99,710, dated 21. 11. 1990, which translated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 26, 1-1. The consensus obtained from discussions at three recent International Labour Conferences (2001, 2011 and 2012) resulted in a Recommendation n. 202 (ILO), which introduced the important concept of the right to “Minimum Social Protection Floors”. This is a concept that gives a new operational meaning to the human right to social security and to an adequate standard of living, which was once only a positive human right. It came from a broad coalition of international interests from 189 countries, not just the human rights activist movement. It has been designed to carefully harmonize human rights and availability of resources and promotion of economic productivity. Therefore, it is a new vision in the field of the human right to social security, since the consensus is based on evidence that social protection systems correspond to an investment that increases the capacity and productivity of work, and that collaborates to increase the aggregate domestic demand, favoring the sustainability of the economy. According to such new understanding, an accessible social protection floor can be introduced, supplemented or maintained everywhere, depending on the circumstances of each country. Such a vision highlights the goal of ensuring universal coverage, albeit at different levels in each region. However, the social protection floor should consist of at least four basic social security guarantees: (a) essential health care, which should include special care with maternity; (b) minimum income security for children, with a minimum level valid throughout the national territory, guaranteeing access to nutrition, education and other essential care; (c) minimum income security for persons of working age but who are unable to obtain sufficient income because of illness, unemployment, maternity or disability; (d) minimum income security, at a national level, for the elderly.

6 The expression “previdência social” comes from the italian model: previdenza sociale , which means, in short, income protection conditionned by a mechanism of social insurance.

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