Guiding Principles to Assess the Human Rights Impact of Economic Reforms? Yes

This chapter discusses the structural elements of the Guiding Principles for human rights impact assessments of economic reform policies, proposed by the UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights. It describes the evolution of structural adjustment responses to financial crises and mitigation of adverse social impact up to the recent financial crisis, explains how structural adjustment programmes usually affect human rights and argues that, for both economic and legal reasons, economic reform programmes must be inclusive while at the same time advance human rights. It also explains how using human rights impact assessments can help strengthen States’ policy responses to financial crises. The chapter concludes with some preliminary recommendations for discussion on the contents and format of the Guiding Principles and proposes the next steps towards their development.