This volume brings together insights and experiences from across the world on the actual and potential role of national human rights institutions with respect to economic, social and cultural rights. Increasingly, national human rights institutions are seen as a necessary part of human rights architecture. Arguably, it may be in the field of economic, social and cultural rights that their added value is the most crucial, as this is where the gap left by other human rights actors and fora is the most manifest. The editors invited a number of academic experts, in addition to several prominent authors from within national human rights institutions. The volume thus brings together theoretical and practical views on the cumulative dynamic of two booming phenomena in contemporary human rights protection: the spread of national human rights institutions and the stepping up of efforts to enforce economic, social and cultural rights.