Realizing Human Rights Through Government Budgets
Date of Publication
2017 12:00 AM
Security Theme
Human Rights
Keywords
Human Rights, srhreports, humanrights, OHCHR, human rights, publicbudgets, realization of rights, budget processes and decisions, international human rights law, human rights framework
Description
Realizing Human Rights through Government Budgets is designed to share with government officials as well as individuals in civil society some of what OHCHR has learned over the past decade about human rights and public budgets. One goal of the publication is to better enable government officials to be guided by their human rights obligations as they develop and implement revenue-raising schemes, decide on allocations in the budget, implement planned expenditure and assess the budget’s impact on the realization of rights. A second goal is to provide civil society with information about the relationship of human rights to budget processes and specific budget decisions, so that people are better able to hold their government to account for their realization of rights. Realizing Human Rights through Government Budgets discusses many of the points of intersection between human rights law and public budgets. It focuses solely on international human rights law, although an analogous framework could be developed for regional and national standards. Throughout the publication a heavy emphasis is placed on the implications of economic and social rights for the budget. This is because most of the work that has been done to date (or court cases that have been heard) that assess governments’ budgets from the perspective of human rights law have focused on such issues as the right to education, health, food, water, sanitation and work. As the publication makes clear, however, the government’s budget is essential for the realization of all rights, and the human rights framework provides an invaluable guide to the formulation and execution of the budget as it relates to all rights. A reference is therefore made throughout this publication to “human rights-related” allocations or expenditure.
Realizing Human Rights Through Government Budgets
Realizing Human Rights through Government Budgets is designed to share with government officials as well as individuals in civil society some of what OHCHR has learned over the past decade about human rights and public budgets. One goal of the publication is to better enable government officials to be guided by their human rights obligations as they develop and implement revenue-raising schemes, decide on allocations in the budget, implement planned expenditure and assess the budget’s impact on the realization of rights. A second goal is to provide civil society with information about the relationship of human rights to budget processes and specific budget decisions, so that people are better able to hold their government to account for their realization of rights. Realizing Human Rights through Government Budgets discusses many of the points of intersection between human rights law and public budgets. It focuses solely on international human rights law, although an analogous framework could be developed for regional and national standards. Throughout the publication a heavy emphasis is placed on the implications of economic and social rights for the budget. This is because most of the work that has been done to date (or court cases that have been heard) that assess governments’ budgets from the perspective of human rights law have focused on such issues as the right to education, health, food, water, sanitation and work. As the publication makes clear, however, the government’s budget is essential for the realization of all rights, and the human rights framework provides an invaluable guide to the formulation and execution of the budget as it relates to all rights. A reference is therefore made throughout this publication to “human rights-related” allocations or expenditure.
