Full Description
This edited collection addresses some of the most important challenges in contemporary human rights law and practice. Its central theme is the linkage between public finance, particularly budget decisions, and the realisation (or not) of economic and social rights. While much academic and political debate on economic and social rights implementation has focused on the role of the courts, this work places the spotlight squarely on those organs of government that have the primary responsibility and the greatest capacity for giving effect to such rights: namely, the elected branches of government. The major actors considered in this book are politicians, public servants and civil society, with their role in realising economic and social rights the work's key focus. The book thus makes a crucial contribution to remedying the current imbalance in attention paid by economic and social rights scholars to the legislature and executive vis-a-vis the judiciary.
Featuring pioneering work by leading experts in the field of human rights and public finance, this multidisciplinary collection will be of great interest to academics, practitioners, public servants and students working in the areas of law, human rights, economics, development and political science.
Contents
Introduction
Aoife Nolan, Rory O'Connell and Colin Harvey
I. FOUNDATIONS
II.
1. Public Finance, Maximum Available Resources and Human Rights
Diane Elson, Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heintz
2. Putting ESR-Based Budget Analysis into Practice: Addressing the Conceptual Challenges
Aoife Nolan
3. Let Them Eat Cake: Socio-Economic Rights in an Age of Austerity
Paul O'Connell
4. Resourcing Rights: Combating Tax Injustice from a Human Rights Perspective
Ignacio Saiz
III. GOVERNANCE
IV.
5. Recovering the History of Human Rights: Public Finances and Human Rights
Rory O'Connell
6. Better on the Margins? A Critique of Mainstreaming Economic and Social Rights
Eoin Rooney and Colin Harvey
III. GROUP-SPECIFIC WORK
7. Budget for Children
Enakshi Ganguly Thukral
8. Equality Proofing the Budget: Lessons from the Experiences of Gender Budgeting?
Sheila Quinn
IV. ANALYSIS IN ACTION
9. The Right to Adequate Housing: A Case Study of the Social Housing Budget in Northern Ireland
Eoin Rooney and Mira Dutschke
10. Assessing the Impact of the Public Spending Cuts: Taking Human Rights and Equality Seriously
James Harrison and Mary-Ann Stephenson
