Since 1961 the European Social Charter (ESC) has been the flagship of international instruments dealing with social rights broadly defined. It constitutes a benchmark against which other international standards and supervisory arrangements in this field have come to be judged. This paper identifies a range of initiatives designed to make the Charter's supervisory arrangements more effective. It consists of four parts: (i) situating the ESC within the overall European human rights regime, (ii) a comparison with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, (iii) an examination of the ESC's strengths and weaknesses as demonstrated by a case study of Italy, and (iv) specific recommendations for enhancing effectiveness.