Of Austerity, Human Rights and International Institutions

Abstract

Austerity measures have led to the denial of social rights and widespread socio‐economic malaise across Europe. In the case of countries subjected to conditionality imposed by international institutions, the resultant harms have highlighted a range of responsibility gaps. Two legal developments come together to expose these gaps: Greece's argument in a series of cases under the European Social Charter that it was not responsible for the impact on rights brought about by austerity measures as it was only giving effect to its other international obligations as agreed with the Troika; and the concern to emerge from the Pringle case before the European Court of Justice that European Union (EU) institutions could do outside of the EU what they could not do within the EU ‐‐disregard the Charter of Fundamental Rights. That the Commission and the European Central Bank were in time answerable to international organisations set up to provide financial support adds an additional layer of responsibility to consider. Taking Greece as a case study, this article addresses the imperative of having international institutions respect human rights.

Practising social work in a context of austerity: experiences of public sector social workers in Greece

“…This framing legitimized the further neoliberal restructuring of society and its resultant social spending cuts (author's own, Levitas, 2012). A country that has been particularly harshly affected by social spending cuts/austerity measures and neoliberal restructuring is Greece (author's own;Karamesini, 2015;Salomon, 2015;Ioakimidis and Teloni, 2013). While there have been explorations into the impact of the social spending cuts on social work in general, there has not been any empirical work related to the impact of the cuts on public sector social workers in Greece.…”

“…These policies include, one of the lowest corporate taxation rates in the EU (OECD (2010), one of the highest military spending levels worldwide (SIPRI, 2010), and the implementation of a high bank bailout (for a detailed discussion about the factors that led to the HPDC see author 's own, 2013 Greece (Bohoslavsky, 2015). Furthermore, leading legal scholars (Salomon, 2015) have argued that imposed austerity has led to the denial of social rights and enormous social harm. The deteriorating conditions have put enormous pressures on the Greek welfare state.…”

Beyond Integration Theory: The (Anti‐)Constitutional Dimension of European Crisis Governance

“…Moreover, the Troika's operations also interfere with individual rights of the people in countries under one of the support programmes (Fischer-Lescano, 2014;Salomon, 2015). In an analysis of MoUs' effects on individual and collective economic and social rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and other European and international law instruments, Fischer-Lescano (2014, pp.…”

“…In an analysis of MoUs' effects on individual and collective economic and social rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and other European and international law instruments, Fischer-Lescano (2014, pp. 42-52) finds that Troika measures affect the rights to social security and health and undermine labour and trade union rights by, for example, laying down obligations for minimum wage reductions and wage-setting restrictions, the lowering of standards of protection against unfair dismissal and the suspension of collective bargaining agreements (see also Dawson and de Witte, 2013, p. 825;Salomon, 2015).…”

Neo-democracy: ‘Useful Idiot’ of Neo-liberalism?

“…controls on the protests provoked by the policies of austerity (themselves entailing an 'economic policy akin to neoliberalism' (Salomon 2015)) have operated within not outside conventional rules. Perhaps the beneficiaries of the new economic order believed they value these ideals themselves; perhaps those who make their opinions for them judge that their explicit jettisoning would be too dangerous, given the anger of the present moment.…”