# The Minimum Core Risk Determination Use the Minimum Core Risk Determination when indicated by project risk indicator questions. Conservation or community development projects likely will create changes and impacts in the Communities they serve. It’s important to understand that some degree of impact will be unavoidable, especially when considering potential impacts to socioeconomic rights such as access to food and water, level of income, and so on. These rights are legally binding but also not typically considered to be justiciable — meaning subject to trial in a court of laws. Rather, the rights are understood to express the obligation of [progressive realization ](/glossary#progressive-realization), wherein States are required to: - Respect existing access - Protect from third-party interference - Fulfill the right over time pursuant to concrete and non-discriminatory plans of action. Some violations of socioeconomic rights are so severe or intertwined with other human rights violations that they are considered justiciable. To figure out which risks these are, draw on the concept of the **minimum core**, which refers to the basic level of a right that all humans are entitled to. In considering such violations, the focus is on the conduct that led to violation *(e.g.: Was the violation motivated by unlawful purpose?)* rather than the degree of the violation, the adequacy of the right alone or the condition of the right. Human rights law generally finds a minimum violation where the following factors are involved: 1. unlawful discrimination in the respect, protection, or fulfillment of the right 2. retrogressive actions or measures that worsen baseline conditions of the right 3. failure to pursue available mitigation strategies that would alleviate insecurity, even in part 4. the existence of persistent severe inadequacy, especially affecting children If harm is driven by [unlawful discrimination ](/glossary#unlawful-discrimination), violations may become entrenched and thus, harder to address. Furthermore, States’ claims that they lack means to address socioeconomic rights impacts does not absolve them of the responsibility to develop such measures. The concept of **minimum adequacy** is complicated. Minimum core analysis recognizes this limitation, but also presumes that there is a minimum core level of enjoyment of the right that all people need to live with basic dignity. Project risk assessment examines minimum core risks because an unintended consequence in the context of such a risk raises the possibility of more severe harm. For example, if a Community relies on a particular food source and experiences hunger when crops fail, any project that jeopardizes the viability of that food source might create a persistent state of hunger and raise the minimum core risk of the project. Some **adequacy indicators** are provided below for six socioeconomic rights. Human rights authorities have made clear that States’ claims about lack of resources to protect these rights must distinguish \[between\] inability \[and\] unwillingness, and can only be legitimate where a State can show it unsuccessfully sought to obtain international support. Many of these adequacy indicators also implicate the basic right to life. ### Food Food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture^\[1\]. “The right to be free from hunger” is emphasized in article 11 of the ICESCR. > \[1\] - See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 12 (right to food) (relevant terms discussed at paragraphs 9-11). ### Water Clean water to meet the needs of “drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation, personal and household hygiene” is necessary to prevent disease.^\[1\] The right to water is a component of adequate standards of living according to article 11 of the ICESCR. > \[1\] - See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 15 (right to water) (additional minimum core elements discussed at paragraph 37). ### Housing Shelter “providing the inhabitants with adequate space and protecting them from cold, damp, heat, rain, wind or other threats to health, structural hazards, and disease vectors. The physical safety of occupants must be guaranteed as well.”^\[1\] The right to housing is a component of adequate standards of living in article 11 of the ICESCR. > \[1\] - See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 4, ¶ 8 (right to housing) (additional minimum core elements discussed at paragraph 8); General Comment No. 7 (regarding forced evictions). ### Medical care The right to “the highest attainable standard of health” is stated in article 12 or the ICESCR.^\[1\] The right includes freedom to control one’s and body, including sexual and reproductive freedom, the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation, as well as a protection component (“the right to a system of health protection which provides equality of opportunity”).^\[2\] The protection component includes a right of access to “essential medicines,” especially vaccines for children. ^\[3\] Analysis should focus on health system failures that “are likely to result in bodily harm, unnecessary morbidity and preventable mortality.”^\[4\] > \[1\] - The article focuses on the right to maternal, child and reproductive health; the right to healthy natural and workplace environments; the right to prevention, treatment and control of diseases; and the right to health facilities, goods and services. > > \[2\] - See, e.g., Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 14 (right to health) (relevant terms are discussed at paragraphs 9-11). > > \[3\] - See [WHO Action programme on essential drugs and vaccines](https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/161032) > > \[4\] - General Comment No. 14 at ¶ 50. ### Education The right to education is stated in article 13 of the ICESCR and articles 28-29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Education is linked to dignity: “a person’s basic right to acquire knowledge, culture, value and skills . . . are all intertwined and all constitute conditions for a life with human dignity.”^\[1\] A focus on the availability of universal and free primary education includes freedom from discrimination in the area of education. > \[1\] - Angelina Fisher, [“Minimum Core” and the “Right to Education” (Working Paper, 2017). ](https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29142/WP-Fisher-PUBLIC.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y). ### A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This is the most recently codified right by most authorities, including the UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and the European, Inter-American, and African regional human rights systems.^\[1\] The Inter-American Court, in a contested legal case, found the right to be applicable in the nature of a due diligence obligation, requiring the duty-bearer to “(i) regulate; (ii) supervise and monitor; (iii) require and approve environmental impact assessments; (iv) establish contingency plans, and (v) mitigate, when environmental damage has occurred.”^\[2\] > \[1\] - On July 26, 2022, the UN General Assembly, in [Resolution A/76/L.75 ](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3982508?ln=en), officially recognized the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Comunidades Indígenas Miembros de la Asociación Lhaka Honhat (Nuestra Tierra) v. Argentina, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (Feb 6, 2020); Advisory Opinion OC-23/17, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 23, ¶ 57 (Nov. 15, 2017). In 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur on the issue of the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, following an extensive period of investigation and consultation, issue the [Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment ](https://undocs.org/A/HRC/37/59) which distill and reflect basic expectation and good practice with respect to the right. > > \[2\] - Asociación Lhaka Honhat, supra, at ¶ 208. There is, as yet, no specific guidance about the minimum core of the environment right, though authorities suggest it maps onto the elements of prohibiting unlawful discrimination, retrogression, and failure to pursue mitigation. If environmental harm strongly affects children, vulnerable groups, Indigenous Peoples, environmental defenders, or involves the use of toxic substances, a minimum core violation is more likely to be triggered. States have a clear obligation to meet these rights, but other entities — companies, NGOs — also have obligations. The [UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ](https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf) requires companies to respect the “International Bill of Rights” which includes both the UDHR and the ICESCR. The State’s obligations are generally more rigorously applied than a private actor’s, in that State’s authority is stronger and thus they have a clearer mandate to respect, protect, and fulfill as described above. The private actor’s authority in these aspects is understood to include any practical leverage they might use to achieve desirable results. When the Screening Tool indicates a **Minimum Core Risk Determination**, teams should apply factors (a)-(d) above, and review the relevant adequacy indicators to determine likelihood of a minimum core risk. Teams might simultaneously conduct a Project Risk Determination, because where minimum core risks exist, there will be situations where the risk is either **not applicable**, **unlikely**, the subject of **reliable mitigation**, **authorized**, or of **limited scope**.

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