No Ratchet Down: ICESCR Article 5 and the Covenant's Self-Protection Clause
ICESCR Article 5 prevents the Covenant from turning against itself. Two provisions do different work: the first forecloses any interpretation that would authorize destroying the rights the treaty creates; the second establishes that ratification cannot serve as a pretext to weaken protections that already exist in domestic law. For U.S. workers, Article 5 legally forecloses a frequently cited objection to ratification — that it would lower existing labor standards.