text: Whether at the local, national or international level, economic policy has determinative implications for the enjoyment of human rights. The policy choices made by governments and other powerful actors mark the difference between a life of dignity and one of deprivation and injustice for literally billions of people. Despite these facts, the human rights movement has until recently been hesitant to grapple with the politically contentious field of economic policy, however.
  When a tiny handful of elite individuals control more wealth than rest of humanity, and countless millions are denied their most basic human rights, this disconnect can no longer be ignored. CESR is on the vanguard of a burgeoning movement that is seeking to bridge the long-standing divide between human rights and economic policy.
  In accordance with human rights treaties that have been signed and ratified by almost all countries, governments are required to mobilize the maximum of available resources for the fulfillment of human rights. Their economic policies are also subject to precise standards of participation, transparency, accountability and non-discrimination. Moreover, these standards are applicable to both the national and international human rights impacts of economic policies, as governments are obliged to ensure such policies serve to advance, rather than impede, human rights in other countries. Much of the economic instability of recent years, and the pervasive deprivations that continue alongside unprecedented levels of wealth, can be traced back to governments’ failure to comply with their human rights obligations in this regard.
  Working in close collaboration with partner organizations, CESR is bringing human rights standards to bear in the design and implementation of economic policy around the world. Building on our pioneering work in monitoring compliance with economic and social rights standards, our Austerity and its Alternatives project sees us calling governments to account for ill-conceived austerity programs in countries such as Ireland, Spain, Brazil and South Africa.
  Alongside this, our Challenging Fiscal Injustice through Human Rights project is bringing the tax justice and human rights communities together in a cohesive and dynamic movement demanding justice in the generation and allocation of resources. CESR led the creation of the new Initiative for the Principles and Guidelines on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean with a distinguished set of regional partners.
  In the immediate aftermath of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, it seemed the injustices of unfettered capitalism, and the shortcomings of the economic planning that went with it could no longer be ignored. However, the international community has largely failed to learn the lessons of the collapse, and the rise of fiscal austerity and the proliferation of tax abuse are the new norms.
  CESR’s Human Rights in Economic Policy Program is challenging these unjust and unsustainable dynamics, by uplifting the transformative power of human rights in economic policy-making. Ultimately, economies must serve the needs of ordinary people, rather than people being at the mercy of the economies in which they live.
  Issue Areas:
  Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy
  Austerity and its Alternatives
  Challenging Fiscal Injustice through Human Rights
  Resourcing a Just Recovery from COVID-19
  Related Content
  Join Us at the Fiscal Justice and Human Rights Week
  Happening May 17-21, we are co-hosting a whole week of events to launch the Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy.
  Spain: From Laggard to Leader on Social Rights?
  Devastating findings of UN poverty expert’s recent visit to Spain put the new government’s commitments on social rights to the test.
  Dismantling the Dogmas of Austerity and Fiscal Injustice in Latin America
  This briefing debunks 10 commonly held misconceptions about why fiscal consolidation policies are necessary.
  Resources Restricting Rights: Fiscal Policy, Inequality and Social Rights in Peru
  Funding gaps for education and healthcare in Peru create significant obstacles to the guarantee of human rights and economic equality.
  Towards Human Rights-Based Fiscal Policies: Principles and Guidelines for Latin America and the Caribbean
  CESR and Latin American organizations are drafting Principles and Guidelines toward securing human rights standards in fiscal policy.
  Snapshots from a Lost Decade for human rights: Ten years since the financial crisis
  Slideshow illustrates the impacts of CESR's collaborative work monitoring austerity policies and other effects of the 2008 financial crisis.
  Tax abuse leads to human rights abuse
  Policy-makers have played Jenga with the broken international corporate tax system for some time. It’s time to build a new foundation for effective taxation of multinationals.
  Rights in an Age of Austerity: Encouraging Fiscal Alternatives at the IMF
  This spring, CESR challenged the IMF to stop supporting harmful fiscal consolidation measures, as in Brazil, Peru, Spain and Egypt,
  Brazil's austerity cap stunting rights to food, health and education
  Press release: CESR and partners present new empirical findings on austerity’s severe impact on food security, health and education in Brazil.
  USA: Extreme poverty and inequality in a land of plenty
  The UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights undertook a revealing fact-finding mission to the USA.
  Inequality: can human rights make a difference?
  CESR guest-edits a openGlobalRights debate exploring the intersection of extreme economic inequality and human rights.
  Fighting fiscal injustice and human rights risks across the Andean Region
  Input from Andean region organizations and experts suggests potential civil society actions aimed at achieving progressive structural tax and spending reforms.
  Switzerland's financial secrecy scrutinized under human rights spotlight
  UN submission: A coalition of civil society organizations has called on CEDAW to examine the extra-territorial impacts of Switzerland’s financial legislation on women’s rights.
  Key publications
  Tax Justice and Human Rights: Overview of CESR Materials
  South Africa Factsheet (2018)
  Spain Factsheet (2018)
  Assessing Austerity: Monitoring the human rights impacts of fiscal consolidation (2018)
  Brazil Factsheet (2017)
  Briefing for IACHR's Report on Poverty and Inequality in the Americas (2017)
  Fiscal Impoverishment in the United States: Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty and Human Rights (2017)
  Fiscal Policy for Human Rights and Equality: Mapping debates, initiatives and actors in the Andean Region (2017)
  Política Fiscal para la Igualdad y los Derechos: Mapeo de debates, iniciativas y actores en la Región Andina (2017)
  Switzerland Factsheet (November 2016)
  UK Responsibility for the Impacts of Cross-border Tax Abuse on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (June 2016)
  Documento de síntesis: Política Fiscal y Derechos Humanos en Tiempos de Austeridad (2016)
  Fiscal Policy and Human Rights in the United States (IACHR consultation, January 2016)
  Redistributing Unpaid Care Work: Why tax matters for women's rights (2016)
  Fiscal Policy and Human Rights in the Americas: Mobilizing resources to secure rights (2015)
  Política Fiscal y Derechos Humanos en las Américas: Movilizar los recursos para garantizar los derechos (2015)
  The Lima Declaration on Tax Justice and Human Rights (2015)
  Spain Factsheet (2015)
  A Post-2015 Fiscal Revolution (2014)
  Resourcing Rights: Combating Tax Injustice from a Human Rights Perspective (2013)
  Fiscal Fallacies: 8 Myths about the Age of Austerity and Human Rights Responses
  Mauled by the Celtic Tiger: human rights in Irelands economic meltdown (2012)
  Activities
  Global Civil Society Petitions UN to Investigate Discrimination in Vaccine Roll-Out
  A broad coalition of public health experts, human rights law groups, and organizations -including CESR- have taken legal action against the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland due to an inequitable and racially discriminatory rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.
  CESR Highlights the Importance of Human Rights to Combat Illicit Financial Flows
  The Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy were presented at the 4th Conference on the Right to Development & Illicit Financial Flows from Africa.
  CEWLA and CESR Submit a Follow up Report on Egypt to the CEDAW’s 80th Session
  The report analyzes issues raised by the Committee related particularly to women’s enjoyment of economic and social rights, in light of the pandemic and in the context of the IMF-backed economic reform program in Egypt.