In light of the system of follow-up to violation decisions adopted by the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), it is possible to draw some conclusions about the legal value and actual impact of these decisions, and more generally about the importance and effectiveness of the collective complaints procedure as an instrument for protecting social rights in Europe.

From a ‘formalistic’ legal standpoint, it is all too clear that, despite the judicial character of the proceedings before the ECSR, the scrupulously adversarial nature of the procedure and the structure and contents of the ECSR's decisions, characterised by a painstaking analysis and description of all the factual and legal issues, a closely argued assessment and clear and precise operative provisions, the decisions on the merits of collective complaints are not tantamount to ‘judgements’ of an international court, that is, decisions with which the state in question is legally bound to comply. In fact, neither the 1995 Protocol nor the Revised Charter includes any provision identical or similar to Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as amended by Protocols 11 and 14 (or to Article 53 of the original 1950 version of the Convention). The states parties to the 1995 Protocol are not formally bound, therefore, to comply with the Committee's decisions in cases to which they are party.

One could also express this in the following terms, namely, that when the ECSR adopts a decision on the merits of a collective complaint, it does not exercise a judicial function in the strict sense but a quasi-judicial function, and its decisions do not have the legal authority or status of res judicata, that is, the binding force of a court judgement.

But setting aside general theoretical definitions and abstract legal classifications, and looking at the absence of binding force from the peculiar standpoint of international law, what such absence really implies is that if the state officials or organs concerned – whether they exercise legislative, executive, judicial or any other functions, whatever position they hold in the organisation of the state and whatever their character as an organ of the central government or of a territorial unit of the state – fail to implement what is required to comply with an ECSR's violation decision,