Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis

'The link between finance and human rights is one of the great known unknowns of our time. Not even the trauma of the 2007/8 global financial crisis has shaken loose the imperceptibility of this critical intersection. Until now. With commendable ambition and consummate skill, this book takes on the challenge. Not only has Nolan shown vision by focusing the volume on the impact of the crisis on economic and social rights, she has backed it up by assembling an impressive array of leading thinkers and practitioners in the field to cast light on a matter that is as vitally important as it is fundamentally misunderstood.' David Kinley, Sydney Law School

'[This book] comes at a critical moment ... By clearly identifying cases of past and present socio-economic rights violations and by expanding on alternatives and legal responses for dealing with economic crisis, [it] will be a fundamental tool to guide policy and law makers, judges and civil society organizations. [It] also promises to be a critical resource for UN Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures who, in their daily work, are confronted with the (in)direct impact on human rights of the austerity measures discussed here. By calling a spade a spade and elaborating on violations of socio-economic rights in the context of crisis, this book not only brings legal clarity to an often nebulous domain, but also a sense of hope to all those who wish to litigate and enforce these rights in the context of the economic crisis.' Catarina de Albuquerque, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation

'This is a very welcome book from an able editor and a group of scholars and practitioners committed to understanding the tools we have should we seek to leave no one behind in the enduring march towards economic globalization. If in the end this valuable publication has left us wondering if human rights law is fit for purpose, we might first question whether the world we have fashioned is fit for humans.' Margot E. Salomon, Human Rights Law Review

Aoife Nolan is Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Nottingham.

Introduction Aoife Nolan; Part I. Painting the Big (Global) Picture: The Crises and Economic and Social Rights Protection Internationally: 1. Alternatives to austerity: a human rights framework for economic recovery Magdalena Seplveda Carmona; 2. Late-Neoliberalism: the financialisation of homeownership and the housing rights of the poor Raquel Rolnik and Lidia Rabinovich; 3. The role of global governance in supporting human rights: the global food price crisis and the right to food Olivier de Schutter; Part II. Teasing Out Obligations in a Time of Crisis: 4. Two steps forward, no steps back? Evolving criteria on the prohibition of retrogression in economic, social and cultural rights Aoife Nolan, Nicholas Lusiani and Christian Courtis; 5. Extraterritorial obligations, financial globalisation, and macroeconomic governance Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heintz; Part III. Exploring Responses to Financial and Economic Crisis: 6. Austerity and the faded dream of a 'social Europe' Colm O'Cinneide; 7. Rationalising the right to health: is Spain's austere response to the economic crisis impermissible under international human rights law Nicholas Lusiani; 8. Tough times and weak review: the 2008 economic meltdown and the enforcement of socio-economic rights in US state courts Helen Hershkoff and Stephen Loffredo; 9. The promise of a minimum core approach: the Colombian model for judicial review of austerity measures David Landau; 10. The impact of the Supreme Court of Argentina on ESCR in the decade following the 2001/2003 crises Ezequiel Nino and Gustavo Maurino; 11. Recession, recovery and service delivery: political and judicial responses to the financial and economic crisis in South Africa Anashri Pillay and Murray Wesson.