The OPERA Framework
the right(s) under review were less influenced by direct service provision by the state? Or where
responsibility for service provision has been devolved to provincial or municipal governments? In
some contexts, rights such as the rights to work, food or housing, are more market-driven. In other
contexts, national-level governments retain little influence over health or education policies. When
this is the case, the conduct of the private sector, lower-level governments or other states may be the
more appropriate focus of analysis. To do this, it might be necessary to adjust OPERA or embed other
monitoring methodologies within it to capture the state’s obligations to respect and protect rights,
or even the extra-territorial obligations of other states.
While these questions are not easily resolved, they can be kept in perspective by viewing OPERA,
not as a one-size-fits-all mold to follow, but as a flexible overarching framework that sets out the
broad categories of issues that need to be addressed when monitoring the obligation to fulfill ESC
rights. Within each of these categories there is an inventory of indicative questions and suggested
methods for answering them. But it will ultimately be up to each user to determine which of those
questions demand greater attention for the purposes of their monitoring activity and how they can
best be answered, depending on the objectives, priorities, and practical constraints in their particular
context. Viewed this way, OPERA has the potential to make a unique contribution to efforts to increase
accountability for some of the most systemic and intractable human rights violations of our time.
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