This chapter argues that, with the exception of the right to education, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) does not protect economic and social rights. The chapter does not dispute that there may be overlaps between certain civil and political rights and economic and social rights. For instance, the trade union aspects of the political right of association with the economic right to organize for the protection of workers' interests; but they are not the same thing. Certainly they are not the same in the ECHR and the European Social Charter (ESC). It argues that what the Convention sometimes protects are economic and social aspects of explicit Convention rights. For instance, protection against state-inflicted destitution as an aspect of article 3; but again, this is not the protection of an economic and social right to social security or even to social and medical assistance.
Keywords: economic rights, social rights, civil rights, ECHR, European Social Charter,