Within the framework of the human rights treaty system of the European Social Charter, the collective complaints procedure was created in 1995 as an optional quasi-jurisdictional monitoring mechanism specific for the protection of social rights. In recent years, the importance and use of this procedure has increased considerably, in the context of a number of serious economic and social crises which are impacting negatively on the effective enjoyment of social rights in Europe.

The present monograph explores and clarifies the specific features of the collective complaints procedure, intended as a sui generis instrument for the protection of social rights in the light of its evolutive application by the European Committee of Social Rights (the monitoring body of the European Social Charter) and its real impact on the state and conditions of social rights in the European countries concerned.

The analysis particularly dwells on the collective nature of the mechanism, and its implications from the standpoint of the admissibility of complaints, on the adversarial character of the procedure and on the particularities of the follow-up to findings of violation adopted by the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR). The crucial issues concerning the legal value and effects of the ECSR's decisions on the merits of collective complaints, on the one hand, and the effectiveness of the collective complaints procedure as a means for the protection of social rights, on the other hand, are also addressed. Lastly, the book proposes some reflections on the supposed limitations on the effectiveness of a procedure which is conceived to deal not with individual situations of human rights violations but with violations characterized by elements of "collective importance" for many subjects.