Human rights and democracy in economic policy reform: the European COVID-19 response under scrutiny

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the impact of economic policy reforms on democratic institutions might compromise the enjoyment of human rights, especially economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights). This impact is twofold: First, economic reform policies driven by international and supranational institutions compromise democratic self-determination. Second, economic reform policies driven by the need to reduce public expenditure might put marginalised groups at risk and hamper their democratic participation. Since the realisation of ESC rights requires a framework for legitimate redistributive decisions, any such impairment of democratic institutions poses a risk to the realisation of ESC rights. Courts are unlikely to fully compensate for this risk. The Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Economic Reforms (the Guiding Principles) devise a way for jointly strengthening human rights and democracy. Crucially, they urge states to subject economic policy reforms to democratic control. Human rights impact assessments may empower the public sphere and shift economic policy reforms from the Arcanum of high-level international negotiations back to democratic processes. Moreover, the Guiding Principles oblige states to design comprehensive and participatory economic policy reforms. The article shows the potential of the Guiding Principles by probing the European Union's response to COVID-19 and suggests improvements.

KEYWORDS:

• ESC rights
• democracy
• international financial institutions
• human rights impact assessment
• economic policy reforms
• COVID-19

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Aoife Nolan and Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky for highly valuable advice, and to Benjamin Arens for research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Matthias Goldmann is Junior Professor of International Public Law and Financial Law, Goethe University Frankfurt and Senior Research Fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg.

Notes

1 Angelique Chrisafis et al., ‘Greek No Voters Protest against Pain of Austerity but Concerns for Future Remain’, The Guardian, July 5, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/05/greek-referendum-no-voters-pain-austerity-concerns-future-euro (accessed July 27, 2020).

2 Cf. Ilias Bantekas, ‘Sovereign Debt and Self-Determination’, in Sovereign Debt and Human Rights, ed. Ilias Bantekas and Cephas Lumina (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 271; Emilios Christodoulidis, ‘Europe's Donors and Its Supplicants: Reflections on the Greek Crisis’, in Constitutional Sovereignty and Social Solidarity in Europe, ed. J. van der Walt and J. Ellsworth (Baden-Baden: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 241.

3 Ashoka Mody, ‘The IMF abetted the European Union's subversion of Greek democracy’, openDemocracy, September 1, 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/imf-abetted-european-union-s-subversion-of-greek-democracy/ (accessed July 15, 2020).

4 Cf. Davide Furceri, Prakash Loungani, Jonathan D. Ostry, and Pietro Pizzuto, ‘COVID-19 Will Raise Inequality if Past Pandemics Are a Guide’, VoxEU, comment posted May 8, 2020, https://voxeu.org/article/covid-19-will-raise-inequality-if-past-pandemics-are-guide (accessed July 24, 2020).

5 Francesc Amat et al., ‘Pandemics Meet Democracy. Experimental Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis in Spain’, Working Paper (2020). Available at https://osf.io/dkusw/download (accessed July 24, 2020). But see Damien Bol et al., ‘The Effect of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Political Support: Some Good News for Democracy?’, European Journal of Political Research 59 (2020, forthcoming).

6 Human Rights Council, Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Economic Reforms: Report of the Independent Expert on the Effects of Foreign Debt and Other Related International Financial Obligations of States on the Full Enjoyment of Human Rights, Particularly Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/40/57, December 19, 2018 (hereinafter ‘Guiding Principles’). The Human Rights Council adopted the Guiding Principles with Resolution 40/8 of March 21, 2019, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/40/8.

7 For many: Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Hachette UK, 2018), 233–35.

8 Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, ‘Complicity of International Financial Institutions in Violation of Human Rights in the Context of Economic Reforms’, Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 52 (2020, forthcoming).

9 Cf. Olivier Blanchard and Daniel Leigh, ‘Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers’, IMF Working Paper, no. WP/13/1 (2013).

10 Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Oxford University Press, 2013), 252; David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills (Basic Books (AZ), 2013), 77.

11 William G. Gale and Andrew A. Samwick, ‘Effects of Income Tax Changes on Economic Growth’, available at SSRN (2014), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2494468.

12 Alexander E. Kentikelenis and Sarah Babb, ‘The Making of Neoliberal Globalization: Norm Substitution and the Politics of Clandestine Institutional Change’, American Journal of Sociology 124, no. 6 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1086/702900.

13 On this episode and the IMF response, see Richard Jolly, ‘Adjustment with a Human Face: A UNICEF Record and Perspective on the 1980s’, World Development 19, no. 12 (1991/12/01/ 1991), https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(91)90026-E.

14 For a full account, see Matthias Goldmann, ‘Contesting Austerity: Genealogies of Human Rights Discourse’, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper, no. 2020-09 (2020), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3561660. Early examples from the scholarly literature include Daniel D. Bradlow, ‘The World Bank, the IMF, and Human Rights’, Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 6 (1996).

15 E.g. U.N. Commission on Human Rights, The New International Economic Order and the Promotion of Human Rights, Draft resolution of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1987/L.57, August 28, 1978; U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Foreign debt, economic adjustment policies and their effects on the full enjoyment of human rights and, in particular, on the implementation of the Declaration on the Right to Development, Resolution 1989/15, March 2, 1989 (this resolution added the topic to the Commission's agenda).

16 U.N. Commission on Human Rights, The New International Economic Order and the Promotion of Human Rights, Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Preliminary report prepared by Mr. Danilo Türk, Special Rapporteur, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1989/19, June 28, 1989, para. 52 et seq., 77 et seq.

17 Cf. U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Report of the open-ended working group on structural adjustment programmes and economic, social and cultural rights on its first session, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1997/20, March 10, 1997.

18 Radhika Balakrishnan, James Heintz, and Diane Elson, Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights (Routledge, 2016), 71.

19 Human Rights Council, Guiding principles on foreign debt and human rights, Annex to the Report of the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, Cephas Lumina, U.N. Doc. A/RES/20/23, April 10, 2011, paras 10–20. The Human Rights Council endorsed the Guiding Principles by majority with Resolution 20/10, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/20/10, July 18, 2012.

20 For a full account, see Matthias Goldmann, ‘Financial Institutions and Social Rights: from the Washington Consensus to the Lagarde Concord?’, in Research Handbook on International Law and Social Rights, ed. Christina Binder et al. (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2020), 452.

21 U.N. General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, UN Doc. A/20/ 274, August 4, 2015, 5; Willem Van Genugten, The World Bank Group, the IMF and Human Rights: A Contextualised Way Forward (Intersentia, 2015), 4, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/world-bank-group-the-imf-and-human-rights/41235D9987C4A890F9E536448C608611.

22 Ibrahim FI Shihata, The World Bank in a Changing World: Selected Essays and Lectures, vol. 2 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1991), 70.

23 Cf. Michel Chossudovsky and Pierre Galand, ‘The 1994 Rwandan Genocide – The Use of Rwanda's External Debt (1990–1994). The Responsibility of Donors and Creditors.’ CADTM Website, comment posted April 7, 2016, http://www.cadtm.org/The-1994-Rwandan-Genocide-The-Use (accessed July 24, 2020).

24 Cf. Goldmann, ‘Contesting Austerity: Genealogies of Human Rights Discourse’, 15.

25 IMF Independent Evaluation Office, The IMF and Social Protection, 2017 Evaluation Report (2017), 13 (footnote 40). This evaluation triggered policy changes, see IMF, A Strategy for IMF Engagement on Social Spending, IMF Policy Paper, June 2019. See also the letter by the IMF to Mr Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, July 27, 2017, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IEDebt/impactassessments/IMF.pdf (accessed July 24, 2020).

26 Viljam Engström, ‘The IMF and Protection of Vulnerable Groups’, Nordic Journal of International Law 89 (2020): 209.

27 Many of these issues are discussed in Council of Europe, Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Safeguarding Human Rights in times of economic crisis’, Issue Paper (2013).

28 Engström, ‘The IMF and Protection of Vulnerable Groups,’ 221.

29 On framing in this context, see Hannah Miller, ‘From ‘Rights-Based’ to ‘Rights-Framed’ Approaches: A Social Constructionist View of Human Rights Practice’, The International Journal of Human Rights 14, no. 6 (2010): 915, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2010.512136.

30 Robert Brenner, ‘Escalating Plunder’, New Left Review 123 (2020): 5.

31 Devesh Kapur and Moises Naim, ‘The IMF and Democratic Governance’, Journal of Democracy 16, no. 1 (2005): 91.

32 Armin von Bogdandy and Matthias Goldmann, ‘Sovereign Debt Restructurings as Exercises of Public Authority: Towards a Decentralized Sovereign Insolvency Law’, in Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing: The Search for Common Principles, ed. Carlos Espósito, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, and Yuefen Li (Oxford University Press, 2013), 39.

33 See Yusuf Bangura, Peter Gibbon, and Arve Ofstad, ‘Adjustment, Authoritarianism and Democracy: An Introduction to Some Conceptual and Empirical Issues’, in Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Adjustment: The Politics of Economic Reform in Afriak, ed. Yusuf Bangura and Peter Gibbon (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1992), 8; Bantekas, ‘Sovereign Debt and Self-Determination’; Matthias Goldmann and Silvia Steininger, ‘A Discourse Theoretical Approach to Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Towards a Democratic Financial Order’, German Law Journal 17 (2016): 709, https://doi.org/10.1017/S207183220002143X; Federico Reho, ‘European Union after the Sovereign Debt Crisis: A Post-Democratic Polity’, The Public Sphere 2 (2014): 83.

34 Wolfgang Streeck, Gekaufte Zeit: Die vertagte Krise des demokratischen Kapitalismus (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 91. See also Commentary 6(1) to Guiding Principle 6, which recognises the implications of economic reforms on political rights.

35 James H. Mittelman and Will Donald, ‘The International Monetary Fund, State Autonomy and Human Rights’, Africa Today 34, no. 1/2 (1987): 49, 63, www.jstor.org/stable/4186408.

36 Benedicte Bull, Alf Morten Jerfe, and Erlend Sigvaldsen, ‘The World Bank's and the IMF's Use of Conditionality to Encourage Privatization and Liberalization: Current Issues and Practices. Report prepared for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a Background for the Oslo Conditionality Conference’, SUM Report No. 13 (2006), https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/32692/Bull.pdf (accessed July 24, 2020).

37 Cf. Mattias Kumm, ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship between Constitutionalism in and Beyond the State’, in Ruling the World? International Law, Global Governance, Constitutionalism, ed. Jeffrey L. Dunoff and Joel P. Trachtman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 258. 258.

38 E.g. Poul F. Kjaer, ‘The Transnational Constitution of Europe's Social Market Economies: A Question of Constitutional Imbalances?’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 57, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12811, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcms.12811.

39 On the global impact of austerity after 2010, see Isabel Ortiz et al., ‘The Decade of Adjustment: A Review of Austerity Trends 2010–2020 in 187 Countries’, ESS Working Paper, no. 53 (2015), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2685853.

40 Andreas Busch, ‘National Filters: Europeanisation, Institutions, and Discourse in the Case of Banking Regulation’, West European Politics 27, no. 2 (2004): 310. On the role of the IMF, cf. Joseph P. Joyce, The IMF and Global Financial Crises. Phoenix Rising? (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013), 72 et seq.

41 Hugh J. Ault, ‘Reflections on the Role of the OECD in Developing International Tax Norms Symposium: Ruling the World: Generating International Legal Norms’, Brooklyn Journal of International Law 34, no. 3 (2008–2009 2008): 757, 782, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/bjil34&i=750; Tony Porter and Michael Webb, ‘The Role of the OECD in the Orchestration of Global Knowledge Networks’, Canadian Political Science Association Annual Meeting (2007), http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2007/Porter-Webb.pdf (accessed July 20, 2020).

42 Thomas Biebricher, ‘Neoliberalism and Law: The Case of the Constitutional Balanced-Budget Amendment’, German Law Journal 17 (2016): 835, https://doi.org/10.1017/S2071832200021489; Matthias Goldmann, ‘On the Comparative Foundations of Principles in International Law: The Move towards Rules and Transparency in Fiscal Policy as Examples’, in Sovereign Financing and International Law, ed. Carlos Espósito, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, and Yuefen Li (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 113.

43 David Zaring, ‘Informal Procedure, Hard and Soft, in International Administration’, University of Chicago International Law Journal 5 (2005): 547.

44 Armin von Bogdandy and Matthias Goldmann, ‘Taming and Framing Indicators: A Legal Reconstructon of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)’, in Governance by Indicators. Global Power through Classification and Rankings, ed. Kevin E. Davis et al. (Oxford University Press, 2012), 52.

45 Kevin E. Davis and Michael B. Kruse, ‘Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project’, Law & Social Inquiry 32, no. 4 (2007): 1095, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2007.00088.x.

46 Kerstin Jacobsson and Niklas Noaksson, ‘From Deregulation to Flexicurity? The Makeover of the OECD Jobs Strategy’, in Mechanisms of OECD Governance, ed. Kerstin Martens and Anja P. Jakobi (Oxford University Press, 2012), 119.

47 On austerity and inequality, see Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, ‘Economic Inequality, Debt Crises and Human Rights’, Yale Journal of International Law Online 42 (2016): 177, https://campuspress.yale.edu/yjil/files/2016/10/J-Bohoslavsky-Special-Edition-11nf9v3.pdf.

48 On the concept of the public sphere, cf. Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Politica; 4, (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1962). The concept was further refined in his later writings. The concept is related to public reason, which John Rawls considers an essential aspect of deliberative democracy. See John Rawls, ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’, University of Chicago Law Review 64 (1997): 772.

49 Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, Social Text 25/26 (1990): 59–60, https://doi.org/10.2307/466240.

50 UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, UN Doc. A/72/502, 4 October 2017, 10.

51 Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Recht, Staat, Freiheit: Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie, Staatstheorie und Verfassungsgeschichte (Suhrkamp, 1991), 112–3.

52 Richard Burchill, ‘Democracy and the Promotion and Protection of Socio-Economic Rights’, in Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in Action, ed. Mashood Baderin and Robert McCorquodale (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 362.

53 Cf. Johannes Hendrik Fahner, ‘Revisiting the Human Right to Democracy: A Positivist Analysis’, The International Journal of Human Rights 21, no. 3 (2017/03/24 2017): 321, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2017.1298735; Niels Petersen, Demokratie als teleologisches Prinzip. Zur Legitimität von Staatsgewalt im Völkerrecht (Heidelberg: Springer, 2009); Thomas M. Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’, American Journal of International Law 86 (1992): 46; Gregory H. Fox and Brad R. Roth, Democratic governance and international law (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

54 Immanuel Kant, ‘Die Metaphysik der Sitten’, in Akademie-Ausgabe (Berlin: Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1900 (1797)), 230.

55 Thomas Jefferson, ‘Letter to James Madison’, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, 7 August 1787 – 31 March 1788, (ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1955), 438–43.

56 Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg, Repr. ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 89–94. Reaching the same conclusion with regard to international human rights: David Beetham, Democracy and Human Rights (Polity Press Cambridge, 1999), 91–2. From the perspective of children's rights: Aoife Nolan, Children's Socio-Economic Rights, Democracy and the Courts (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011), 93 et seq. Popular is also a more one-sided view that sees human rights as a precondition to democracy, yet without stressing the reverse relationship. E.g. Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 219–20.

57 Instructive on the limitations of non-majoritarian institutions such as international organisations: Jürgen Habermas, ‘The Constitutionalization of International Law and the Legitimation Problems of a Constitution for World Society’, Constellations 15 (2008): 451.

58 It is widely recognised that Article 2(1) ICESCR does not stipulate an objective standard. Comprehensively on the development of this debate: Sigrun Skogly, ‘The Requirement of Using the ‘Maximum of Available Resources’ for Human Rights Realisation: A Question of Quality as Well as Quantity?’, Human Rights Law Review 12, no. 3 (2012): 398 et seq., https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngs022.

59 Cf. Michael P. Donnelly, ‘Democracy and Sovereignty vs International Human Rights: Reconciling the Irreconcilable?’, The International Journal of Human Rights (2018): 1, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2018.1454904; on direct democracy and human rights, see Matthias Goldmann, ‘Völkerrechtliche Vereinbarungen und direkte Demokratie’, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (ZaöRV) 78, no. 2 (2018): 281.

60 E.g. Jeremy Waldron, ‘Judicial Review and the Conditions of Democracy’, Journal of Political Philosophy 6, no. 4 (1998): 335, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9760.00058; John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust. A Theory of Judicial Review (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 43 et seq; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, chapter 5. See, however, Ronald Dworkin, Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (OUP Oxford, 1999). Specifically on ESC rights: Aoife Nolan, Bruce Porter, and Malcolm Langford, ‘The Justiciability of Social and Economic Rights: An Updated Appraisal’, CHRGJ Working Paper, no. 15 (2009), https://ssrn.com/abstract=1434944 (accessed July 27, 2020).

61 Kári Hólmar Ragnarsson, ‘The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty in a Neoliberal World: Socio-Economic Rights and Deference in Post-2008 Austerity Cases’, Global Constitutionalism 8, no. 3 (2019): 605, https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381719000212; sceptical also Lin Chun, ‘Human Rights and Democracy: The Case for Decoupling’, The International Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 3 (2001): 19, https://doi.org/10.1080/714003726.

62 See Brenner, ‘Escalating Plunder.’ On the dysfunctionalities of US democracy, see Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How democracies die (Broadway Books, 2018).

63 The analysis of the factors for democratic decay is complex and in flux. Emphasising economic decline: Oliver Nachtwey, Die Abstiegsgesellschaft. Über das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2016).

64 Katharine G Young, ‘Waiting for Rights: Progressive Realization and Lost Time’, in The Future of Economic and Social Rights, ed. Katharine G. Young (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 654.

65 On the example of the Weimar Constitution, see Brun-Otto Bryde, ‘Fundamental Rights as Guidelines and Inspiration: German Constitutionalism in International Perspective Lead Article’, Wisconsin International Law Journal 25, no. 2 (2007–2008, 2007): 193, 208, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/wisint25&i=199. For the postwar period: Samuel Moyn, Not Enough. Human Rights in an Unequal World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 41 et seq.

66 Manuel José Cepeda-Espinoza, ‘Transcript: Social and Economic Rights and the Colombian Constitutional Court’, Tex. L. Rev. 89 (2010): 1699; Karl E. Klare, ‘Legal Culture and Transformative Constitutionalism’, South African Journal on Human Rights 14, no. 1 (1998): 146. For a comprehensive assessment and further case studies, see Roberto Gargarella, Pilar Domingo, and Theunis Roux, eds., Courts and Social Transformation in New Democracies: An Institutional Voice for the Poor? (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

67 Wiktor Osiatynski, ‘Rights in New Constitutions of East Central Europe’, Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 26 (1994): 138 et seq.

68 On Colombia: David Landau, ‘The Promise of a Minimum Core Approach: The Colombian Model for Judicial Review of Austerity Measures’, in Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis, ed. Aoife Nolan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 267. On Central and Eastern Europe: Osiatynski, ‘Rights in New Constitutions of East Central Europe.’

69 From a European perspective: Margot E. Salomon, ‘Of Austerity, Human Rights and International Institutions’, European Law Journal 21 (2015): 521, https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12138.

70 Overview: Claire Kilpatrick, ‘Constitutions, Social Rights and Sovereign Debt States in Europe: A Challenging New Area of Constitutional Inquiry’, in Constitutional Change through Euro-Crisis Law, ed. Bruno de Witte, Claire Kilpatrick, and Thomas Beukers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 279. See also Ragnarsson, ‘The Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty in a Neoliberal World: Socio-Economic Rights and Deference in Post-2008 Austerity Cases.’

71 Mariana Canotilho, Teresa Violante, and Rui Lanceiro, ‘Austerity Measures under Judicial Scrutiny: The Portuguese constitutional Case-law: Portuguese Constitutional Court Decision 399/2010 (Surtax on Personal Income Tax 2010) Decision 396/2011 (State Budget 2011) Decision 353/2012 (State Budget 2012) Decision 187/2013 (State Budget 2013) Decision 474/2013 (Public Workers Requalification) Decision 602/2013 (Labour Code) Decision 794/2013 (40-Hour Work Week) Decision 862/2013 (Pensions Convergence) Decision 413/2014 (State Budget 2014) Decision 572/2014 (Special Solidarity Contribution 2014) Decision 574/2014 (Pay cuts 2014–2018) Decision 575/2014 (Special Sustainability Contribution)’, European Constitutional Law Review 11, no. 1 (2015): 155, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1574019615000103.

72 Constance G. Anthony, ‘American Democratic Interventionism: Romancing the Iconic Woodrow Wilson’, International Studies Perspectives 9, no. 3 (2008): 239; Mark J. L. McClelland, ‘Exporting Virtue: Neoconservatism, Democracy Promotion and the End of History’, The International Journal of Human Rights 15, no. 4 (2011/05/01 2011): 520, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2011.561984.

73 Carlos Closa, ‘Institutional Design of Democratic Conditionality in Regional Organizations’, EUI Working Paper, no. 2013/45 (2013).

74 RP Anand, ‘Sovereign Equality of States in International Law—II’, International Studies 8, no. 4 (1966): 406.

75 Amartya K. Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 324 et seq.

76 John Tasioulas, ‘Minimum Core Obligations: Human Rights in the Here and Now’, World Bank Nordic Trust Fund Research Paper (2017).

77 Many of these controversies, and possible ways of overcoming them, are addressed in Toomas Kotkas, Ingrid Leijten, and Frans Pennings, eds., Specifying and Securing a Social Minimum in the Battle Against Poverty (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019).

78 E.g. CJEU, Joined Cases C-402/05 P & C-415/05, Kadi & Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, judgment of 3 September 2008, ECLI:EU:C:2008:461; ECtHR, Application No. 27021/08, Al-Jedda v UK, judgment of 7 July 2011.

79 Cf. Ely, Democracy and Distrust. A Theory of Judicial Review, 105 et seq; Habermas, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, chapter 9.3, calls this the procedural paradigm.

80 Yota Negishi, ‘The Proceduralization of Social Rights: Access to Information, Justice and Remedies’, in Research Handbook on International Law and Social Rights, ed. Christina Binder et al. (Celtenham: Elgar, 2020), 311.

81 Myrvin Anthony, Gregorio Impavido, and Bert van Selm, ‘Barbados’ 2018–19 Sovereign Debt Restructuring–A Sea Change?’, IMF Working Paper WP/20/34 (2020).

82 James Harrison, ‘Human Rights Measurement: Reflections on the Current Practice and Future Potential of Human Rights Impact Assessment’, Journal of Human Rights Practice 3, no. 2 (2011): 179, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/hur011.

83 See, especially, Guiding Principles, Principle 19.

84 Principle 11, Guiding Principles.

85 Principle 3, Guiding Principles.

86 Decisioni (EU) 2020/440 of the European Central Bank of 24 March 2020 on a temporary pandemic emergency purchase programme (ECB/2020/17).

87 European Commission, Proposal for a Council Regulation on the establishment of a European instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency (SURE) following the COVID-19 outbreak, COM(2020) 139 final, April 2, 2020.

88 For an overview, see Francesco Costamagna and Matthias Goldmann, ‘Constitutional Innovation, Democratic Stagnation? The EU Recovery Plan’, Verfassungsblog, May 30, 2020, https://doi.org/10.17176/20200530-133220-0.

89 Commentary 1(2) to Principle 1, Guiding Principles.

90 Principle 20, Guiding Principles.

91 Ibid., Commentary 20(4).

92 Commentary 17(4) to Principle 17, Guiding Principles.

93 Principle 18, Guiding Principles.

94 Art. 15, TFEU.

95 Directive 2011/92/EU (known as 'Environmental Impact Assessment' – EIA Directive), Annex IV No. 3; Directive 2001/42/EC (known as 'Strategic Environmental Assessment' – SEA Directive), Annex I lit. f.

96 Sanne Larsen et al., ‘Social Impact Assessment in Europe: A Study of Social Impacts in Three Danish Cases’, Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management 17 (01/04 2016): 1550038, https://doi.org/10.1142/S1464333215500386.

97 Werner Roeger, Janos Varga, Jan in ‘t Veld and Lukas Vogel, ‘A Model-Based Assessment of the Distributional Impact of Structural Reforms’, (2019) European Commission Discussion Paper No. 91.

98 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights, COM(2017) 250 final, April 26, 2017.

99 E.g. impact assessments in the area of trade, see https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/policy-making/analysis/policy-evaluation/impact-assessments/ (accessed July 24, 2020).

100 European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document: Assessment of the Social Impact of the new Stability Support Programme for Greece, August 8, 2015, SWD(2015) 162 final, https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/economy-finance/ecfin_assessment_social_impact_en_0.pdf (accessed July 27, 2020).

101 This is related to the ‘juste retour’ principle, which has been much criticised. Cf. High Level Group on Own Resources, ‘Future of Financing the EU’, Final report and recommendations (2016).

102 Article 2(a), Regulation (EC) No 1466/97; cf. Kenneth Armstrong, ‘The New Governance of EU Fiscal Discipline’, European Law Review 38, no. 5 (2013): 601; on the relation of the Stability and Growth Pact with social rights, see Mark Dawson, ‘New Governance and the Displacement of Social Europe: The Case of the European Semester’, European Constitutional Law Review 14, no. 1 (2018): 191.

103 European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Recovery and Resilience Facility, COM(2020) 408 final, May 28, 2020.

104 Article 6(3)(d), Regulation (EU) No 473/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on common provisions for monitoring and assessing draft budgetary plans and ensuring the correction of excessive deficit of the Member States in the euro area, May 21, 2013.

105 Principle 17(b) in conjunction with Principles 7 and 8, Guiding Principles.

106 Principle 17, Guiding Principles.

107 Cf. Principle 20, Guiding Principles.

108 Cf. Commentary 4.2 to Principle 4; Commentary 6.1 to Principle 6; Commentary 7.3 to Principle 7; Commentary 8.3 to Principle 8; Principle 10(h); Commentary 11.5 to Principle 11; Principle 14; Commentary 15.2 to Principle 15; Principle 19.

109 Section B.II.

110 Principle 19, Guiding Principles.

111 Guiding Principles, Commentaries 7(3) and 8(3) to Principles 7 and 8, Principle 10(h), Commentary 15(2) to Principle 15.

112 Cf. Art. 121, TFEU.

113 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, ‘Europe's moment: Repair and Prepare for the Next Generation’, COM(2020) 456 final, May 27, 2020.

114 Cf. Principle 18, Guiding Principles.

115 Art. 314, TFEU.

116 Costamagna and Goldmann, ‘Constitutional Innovation, Democratic Stagnation? The EU Recovery Plan’.

117 Art. 310(1), TFEU; cf. Siegfried Magiera, Article 310 AEUV, in Eberhardt Grabitz, Meinhard Hilf, and Martin Nettesheim, Das Recht der Europäischen Union (69th edn, Beck, Munich 2020), no. 40.

118 Situating the COVID-19 response in the context of European constitutional law: Matthias Goldmann, ‘The European Economic Constitution after the PSPP Judgment: Towards Integrative Liberalism?’, German Law Journal 21, no. 4 (forthcoming).

119 Some might recall the negotiations leading to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Ageement between the European Union and Canada.

120 Cf. Francesco Costamagna, ‘The Impact of Stronger Economic Policy Coordination on the European Social Dimension: Issues of Legitimacy’, in The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, ed. Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini, and Pierre Larouche (Oxford: Hart, 2014), 359.

121 One of the intellectual godfathers of the separation theory is Jan Tinbergen, Centralization and Decentralization in Economic Policy, Contributions to economic analysis (Amsterdam,: North Holland Pub. Co., 1954). See comprehensively Matthias Goldmann, ‘United in Diversity? The Relationship between Monetary Policy and Prudential Supervision in the Banking Union’, European Constitutional Law Review 14, no. 2 (2018): 288 et seq, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1574019618000184.

122 See above, text accompanying n 75.

123 European Council, Special meeting of the European Council (17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 July 2020) – Conclusions, EUCO 10/20, July 21, 2020, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/45109/210720-euco-final-conclusions-en.pdf (accessed July 27, 2020).

124 European Commission, Factsheet: Financing the Recovery Plan for Europe, May 27, 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/factsheet_3_04.06.pdf (accessed July 24, 2020).

125 See Olivier De Schutter, Nicholas Lusiani, and Sergio Chaparro, in this issue; see also the contributions in Philip Alston and Nikki Reisch, Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2019).

126 Introductory statement by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the ECON committee of the European Parliament, June 8, 2020, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp200608~4225ba8a1b.en.html (accessed July 27, 2020).

127 ECB, ‘ECB launches review of its monetary policy strategy, Press Release, January 23, 2020, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2020/html/ecb.pr200123~3b8d9fc08d.en.html (accessed July 24, 2020).

128 BVerfG, 2 BvR 859/15 et al. (Weiss), Judgment of the Second Senate, May 5, 2020, ECLI:DE:BVerfG:2020:rs20200505.2bvr085915.

129 See, e.g., https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/democracy-and-human-rights/global-democracy (accessed July 27, 2020).