A/HRC/4/62 page 8 III. ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN CONFLICT AND POST-CONFLICT SOCIETIES 20. The present section discusses the relevance of economic, social and cultural rights to conflict and post-conflict contexts. It examines how these rights can be protected and realized in conflict and post-conflict settings more systematically and comprehensively than has previously been the case. 21. This section does not purport to provide a comprehensive view of post-conflict justice and development. Rather, it considers selected instruments and strategies that appear crucial to the protection and realization of economic, social and cultural rights in those contexts. While the following discussion focuses on conflict and post-conflict societies, much of it would equally apply to societies undergoing political and economic transition from regimes that may have committed gross human rights violations in contexts other than a conflict, and which would require similar types of intervention and measures. A. The importance of economic, social and cultural rights 22. The comparative neglect of economic, social and cultural rights in the context of post-conflict development and justice is symptomatic of the weaker attention that the international community has traditionally devoted to these rights. The reasons for this comparative neglect of economic, social and cultural rights are not the focus of this report; however, it is relevant to note that the categorization of human rights into civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other has exacerbated the different emphasis placed on different rights, while in fact the breach of a civil or political right will often be related to a breach of an economic, social or cultural right. The converse is equally the case.1 23. Partly as a consequence of the formal divisions between the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, there has been a tendency to underestimate the similarities and differences between rights. Such oversimplification has too easily considered civil and political rights as freedoms from the abuse of State power, in relation to which violations can be found, and economic, social and cultural rights as aspirational goals or “luxury goods”, which may only be reached or provided in countries with a certain level of economic development. Those arguments assume that protection of economic, social and cultural rights is by definition expensive and burdensome, while the realization of other rights is resource free. 24. In fact, while the realization of many aspects of economic, social and cultural rights requires sustained commitment of resources, a number of civil and political rights require similar 1 For further elaboration on the nature of economic, social and cultural rights, see the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (E/2006/86) and, in relation to transitional justice, see High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Economic and social justice for societies in transition”, Second Annual Transitional Justice Lecture, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law, and International Center for Transitional Justice, 25 October 2006, New York.