286 K. Henrard diplomatic protection to nationals subjected to serious human rights violations,124 in the end the ILC Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection stopped at pronouncing a ‘recommendation to states to give due consideration to the possibility of exercising diplomatic protection, especially when a significant injury has occurred’.125 Admittedly, in so far as national standards recognize a state duty to exercise diplomatic protection, this goes hand in hand with extensive discretion.126 In regard to social rights, several developments in the jurisprudence of international courts are noteworthy. As it would be beyond the confines of this article to provide a comprehensive overview of this case law, merely two are highlighted. First, the European Committee on Social Rights has adopted an interpretation of the European Social Charter that increasingly—on human dignity grounds—counters the exclusion of illegal residents from the scope of application of the Social Charter, thus extending social rights even to illegal foreigners.127 Secondly, EU citizens’ free movement rights, entail not only the rights to enter and reside in the other EU Member States,128 but also ever-expanding social rights.129 Also in regard to voting rights, there is an increasing call to extend voting rights to foreign residents. These arguments are less in terms of human rights, since human rights standards themselves are limited to ‘citizens’,130 but rather in terms of democratic theory. In line with the old principle ‘no taxation without representation’ and the more recent ‘all affected principle’, democratic legitimacy would require that when one is subject to obligations, one should also be allowed to take part in the decision making process of these rules.131 Similarly, voting rights are advocated for those who have a stake in the country, whose future is linked to the future of the country, who is affected by the government policies and actions.132 Extending voting rights to migrants is furthermore expected to stimulate their political participation, 124 Dugard (2009), para. 14. Art. 19 of the ILC Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection (2006). See also tho Pesch (2015), p. 58. 126 See also the South African Constitutional Court in Kaunda v. President of the Republic of South Africa, in which the Court identifies a constitutional duty to consider request to offer diplomatic protection by citizens faced by actions by third states that violate international law, and a duty to deal appropriately with these requests. The recognition of a constitutional right goes hand in hand with the conferment of considerable discretion on the state: see also Coombs (2005), p. 683. 127 See European Committee of Social Rights FIDH v. France, Application no. 14/2003, 8 September 2004; DCI v. the Netherlands, Application no. 47/2008, 20 October 2009; DCI v. Belgium, Application no. 69/2011, 23 October 2012; CEC v. the Netherlands, Application no. 990/2013, 19 July 2014; FEANTSA v. the Netherlands, Application 86/2012, 9 July 2014. 128 Arts. 5, 6 and 7 of the Citizen’s Rights Directive 2004/38/EC [(2004) OJ L158/77] concerning the right to enter and the right to reside for up to or for more than 3 months. 129 It has been noted though that these social rights entitlements cannot always be effectively enjoyed: see, inter alia, Pennings and Seeleib-Kaiser (2018). 130 It should be highlighted that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not framed in terms of rights (of citizens) but rather as state obligations to organise elections that secure the ‘free expression of the will of the people’. This reference to people would seem to allow for an interpretation that includes non-national residents. Strikingly there exists no case law on this question, in contrast to an extensive jurisprudence on question of voting rights for non-resident nationals. See, Art. 3 of Protocol no. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights. 131 Beckman (2006), pp. 153–154; Groenendijk (2008), p. 5; Lenard (2015), p. 125. 132 Beckman (2006), pp. 157–160. 125 123