Equality Restricted: The Problematic Compatibility between Austerity Measures and Human Rights Law

Area of Science:

• Socioeconomic policy analysis
• Human rights law
• Economic inequality studies

Background:

• Economic policies concentrating wealth often exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities, negatively impacting human rights.
• Austerity measures, like healthcare defunding, disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups, despite being framed as necessary economic choices.
• Current human rights frameworks often sideline human rights as mere guidelines, rather than limits, to such economic policies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically examine how the assumption of justified wealth concentration informs the exclusion of distributive considerations from human rights law.
• To evaluate emerging interpretations of equality beyond legal non-discrimination and equal treatment.
• To explore the potential for equality in human rights law to incorporate a distributive function against wealth concentration policies like austerity.

Main Methods:

• Critical legal analysis of equality within human rights law.
• Examination of economic policy impacts on human rights realization.
• Literature review of emerging interpretations of legal equality and distributive justice.

Main Results:

• The study identifies a problematic conception of equality in human rights law that permits wealth concentration.
• Evidence suggests that current legal interpretations exclude distributive considerations, thereby enabling policies like austerity.
• Emerging interpretations show potential for equality to encompass distributive functions to combat socioeconomic inequalities.

Conclusions:

• Human rights law needs to broaden its conception of equality to include distributive justice to effectively address wealth concentration and austerity.
• Rethinking equality is crucial for ensuring that economic policies do not undermine fundamental human rights standards.
• Integrating distributive considerations into human rights equality frameworks can better protect vulnerable populations from harmful economic policies.