News & Events

  • In 2011, Equal in Rights published “A Guide to Costing Human Rights” by Victor Steenbergen. This paper provides an overview of all the central concepts and definitions relevant for costing human rights policy.
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  • In 2011, Equal in Rights published “ Frontloading Human Rights: A Conceptual Framework for Building Budget and Realising rights” by Victor Steenbergen. This paper defines all the key concepts and provides an understanding of their relevance for Frontloading Human Rights.
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  • The International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP), in collaboration with the International Budget Partnership (IBP), implemented a ten-day West African Regional Learning Program on Human Rights Budget Work in Monrovia, Liberia from July 4th to July 13th, 2011.
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  • The Center for Women’s Global Leadership published its report on“Maximum Available Resources and Human Rights” in June 2011. This report examines a number of ways that governments can access financial resources in order to fulfill their obligation to use “maximum available resources” to realize ESC rights.
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  • “ No Protection for Children in the Budget 2011-2012” provides an analysis from a child rights’ perspective of the allocations for children (Budget for Children—BfC) in the 2011-12 Indian Union budget. 
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  • In December 2010, The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights in an article, "Austerity Budgets Will Cause Further Child Poverty", recently said that political priorities and budget allocations are the principal reasons for the large differences in child poverty rates among European countries, and between those countries in similar economic situations. 
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  • In mid-2009 the International Budget Partnership (IBP) released “It’s Our Money. Where’s It Gone?”, a documentary film on the work of one of its partners, MUHURI (Muslims for Human Rights).  MUHURI involves communities directly in monitoring expenditure of the government’s Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Mombasa, Kenya.“
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  • In early 2010 IHRIP and the International Budget Partnership (IBP) produced “Reading the books: Government budgets and the right to education” that looks at elements of the right to education and where these might be found in a government’s budget; a government’s human rights obligations and questions these raise about a government’s budget; a process for using a rights framework to analyze a government’s education budget; and a short discussion of costing related to the right to education.
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Other tools for monitoring economic and social (ES) rights PDF Print E-mail

 

There is a growing body of work that addresses how to monitor respect for economic and social rights.  Three key resources are mentioned here:

  • The web page of the Center for Economic and Social Rights discusses methodologies CESR is developing to monitor ES rights, and also includes references to other tools. These methodologies and tools are an essential complement to budget work, because government budget information cannot be properly interpreted in the absence of other data, such as statistics on hunger in a country, primary school attendance, and so on.

  • Budgeting for Economic and Social Rights: A Human Rights Framework (2010) produced by QUB Budget Analysis Project, QUB School of Law, Belfast.  This paper defines the legal obligations imposed on governments by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and analyzes each of them in-depth.  In order for a government to fully realize its obligations with regard to ESC rights, it has to prioritize these rights in its budget, and comply with its obligations to progressively realize the rights by using the maximum available resources.  The paper also explains the “tripartite typology” of respect, protect and fulfill, and how, by analyzing a government’s budget, one could see if a government is complying with these obligations. It also points out the different challenges that may arise when using this framework. At the end of the paper, the author describes minimum core content as well as immediate obligations, and considers how these concepts relate to the government’s budget.  

  • In recent years the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has been paying greater attention to government budgets and how they help advance or hinder enjoyment of ESC rights.  Understanding the work of the Committee is thus important for those interested in exploring how human rights budget work can be used to address their concerns.  A 48-minute video, Out of the Shadows, produced by IHRIP, describes the work of the CESCR and specifically how NGOs can bring their concerns to it.  Copies of the video are available from IHRIP.

 

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