The Impact of Austerity on the Protection of Human Rights
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Description
When should international human rights bodies decide to consider allegations that a government’s adoption of particular economic austerity measures constitutes a violation of its human rights obligations? What degree of causal link would need to be established, and when should traditional forms of deference to governmental choices in the economic and social sphere give way to a heightened form of scrutiny? Given the increasing prominence of austerity, or ‘fiscal consolidation’ as agencies such as the International Monetary Fund now prefer to call it, this issue will demand more careful consideration in the years ahead. As various of the precepts of neoliberal economics have become more accepted, austerity has become a central part of the economic and social landscape in a wide range of situations in countries all around the world. The topic seems particularly apposite for a festschrift in honour of Allan Rosas, given that it combines two of the key areas in which he has excelled, in the course of a highly distinguished career. Long before his formal entrance on to the European Union stage, Allan was a leading scholar, not only in Finland but also internationally, in both human rights law and international humanitarian law. In the former field he was also one of the relatively small group of proponents of the central importance of economic, social and cultural rights, which are generally assumed to be the rights that are most directly affected by policies of austerity. After he joined the European Commission Legal Service as Principal Legal Adviser and then Deputy Director-General, and subsequently became a judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union, he devoted much of his analytical energies to adjudicating cases challenging aspects of economic policies adopted by or within the EU, some of which inevitably involved the intersection of fundamental rights and respect for the EU’s fiscal policy constraints. The analysis that follows begins with an attempt to define what we mean by austerity. It then provides a detailed, and in some respects first-hand, review of the austerity-driven policies that have been pursued in the United Kingdom in recent years, and of some of the results that have followed. Scholarly analyses of issues related to international human rights law are often preoccupied with finer jurisprudential considerations of case law and of the various other pronouncements that emanate from non-judicial bodies that play an important role in monitoring state conduct. While those are certainly relevant for present purposes, it seems important to have a reasonably comprehensive understanding of the policies adopted in the UK in order to provide the necessary backdrop for a consideration of how international human rights bodies should respond to austerity, especially in situations that do not involve the imposition of such an approach by external actors. Following the details of the UK case, the chapter then considers the approach to austerity that has been taken by the Council of Europe and its various constituent parts before comparing this to the approach taken by United Nations human rights bodies, including those monitoring compliance with treaty obligations and those established under the so-called Special Procedures system. It concludes by asking whether these approaches are adequate for responding to the nature and scale of the challenges posed by austerity.
Source Publication
An Ever-Changing Union?: Perspectives on the Future of EU Law in Honour of Allan Rosas
Source Editors/Authors
Koen Lenaerts, Jean-Claude Bonichot, Heikki Kanninen, Caroline Naômé, Pekka Pohjankoski
Publication Date
2019
Recommended Citation
Alston, Philip G., "The Impact of Austerity on the Protection of Human Rights" (2019). Faculty Chapters. 20.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/20
