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Human Rights, Public Budgets, and Epistemic Challenges

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Abstract

Ideally, governing institutions would be designed so that they would produce and implement with certainty ‘human rights-compatible budgets’, i.e. budgets that adequately reflect the obligations enshrined in human rights. However, there are various reasons why a government may ultimately fail to produce such budgets. This article focuses on under-examined challenges for budgeting for human rights: epistemically oriented challenges. More specifically, the article engages in ‘horizon scanning’, and it maps key underlying factors that can be conducive to epistemically oriented challenges to produce and implement human rights-compatible budgets. In addition, the article considers the road ahead from the perspective of institutional design.

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Notes

  1. For a general description of human rights budged work, see also Blyberg 2012.

  2. Here, the inquiry fill focuses strictly on legal human rights, and more foundational philosophical questions relating to human rights remain—even though important—beyond the scope of this paper.

  3. In 1999, the International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP) released a paper titled ‘A Rights-Based Approach towards Budget Analysis’. The guiding framework has also been developed in Fundar’s and IHIP’s Fundar 2004 work ‘Dignity Counts’; Diane Elson’s 2006 paper ‘Budgeting for Women’s Rights: Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW’; APRODEV’s 2007 work ‘Budgeting Human Rights’; and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s 2009 paper ‘Budget Work to Advance the Right to Food: Many a Slip’; O’Connell et al. (2014) have recently examined the obligations arising from ICESCR.

  4. In liberal democratic societies, public budgeting is often described as a process that is subject to bargaining and interest-politics. In fact, some scholarly observers of public budgeting processes describe these as ‘political games’ in which various departments and agencies aim to increase their budgetary allocations. These observers suggest that decision makers often behave self-interestedly and, at best, take a partial view of the public interests into consideration. Then, the final outcome of the decision-making process is seen as a result of a set of games that involve strategy and skill (Fozzard 2001; see also Norton & Elson 2002): 24.

  5. Of course, a reference to the idea of knowledge raises many hard questions. Some of these are related to the nature of the concept: ‘what do we mean by knowledge?’ Philosophical controversies relating to knowledge remain, as important as they are, outside the scope of this paper. On the topic, see, for example, (Audi 2011).

  6. Emily Perkin and Julius Court have adopted a similar idea in the context of policy studies. They define knowledge as ‘information that has been evaluated and organised so that it can be used purposefully’ (Perkin and Court 2005: 2.

  7. Many philosophers and economists have invoked the distinction in various different ways. Henry Brougham, Baron of Brougham, and Vaux warned that ‘an imperfect light is dangerous. In the twilight men’s steps falter; and as they dim see, they doubtfully grope their way’ (Broughman 1846): 29. For Brougham, knowledge is something that shines light on things that were previously in darkness and while doing so eradicates imperfections. In his Nobel price lecture, F. A. Hayek famously noted that ‘I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much indetermined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false’ (Hayek 1974). Hayek gave a warning on predetermination, suggesting that economic models cannot render fully intelligible the causes of market outcomes or the consequences of government policies.

  8. Department of Work and Pensions (2015). Households Below Average Income.

  9. In the context of law and policy-making, discussions on polycentricity have been inspired by philosopher Michael Polanyi’s work (Polanyi 1951). Some courts have also explicitly referred to the idea. For example, the Supreme Court of Canada has stated that a ‘polycentric issue is one which involves a large number of interlocking and interacting interests and considerations’ (Pushpanathan v. Canada [1998] 1 SCR 982).

  10. The Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Equality between Women and Men (CDEG) defines gender budgeting as ‘an application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process. It means a gender-based assessment of budgets, incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality’ (Council of Europe 2010).

  11. The report is available online (page visited 22.08.2015): http://www.wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FINAL-WBG-2014-budget-response.pdf

  12. There are, of course, various—weaker and stronger—interpretations of the idea of ‘indivisibility of human rights’; see e.g. Nickel (2008) and Whelan (2010).

  13. The Preamble to The Maastricht Principles identifies the reality that the impacts of state actions are not confined within the borders of each particular state and declares that ‘the human rights of individuals, groups and peoples are affected by and dependent on the extraterritorial acts and omissions of States. The advent of economic globalisation in particular, has meant that States and other global actors exert considerable influence on the realization of economic, social and cultural rights across the world’.

  14. The idea that governments’ space to draft its policies is limited by market-led globalisation is sometimes called ‘fiscal squeeze’. This is related to the idea of ‘fiscal space’. See, for example, Elson (2004): 633–639.

  15. In his jury theorem, Condorcet (1785) famously argued that the quality of decisions can be enhanced by increasing the number of decision makers. The analytical methods for the scrutiny of collective decision making have developed much since, and many social psychologists have formulated elaborate models, the aim of which is to comprehend how individual biases are transferred to organisational level. On the topic, see, for example, O’Leary (2011) and Elbittar et al. (2015).

  16. On the issue in a non-budgetary context, see, for example, Kerr et al. (1996).

  17. Of course, in reality, the role of economics can expand beyond an instrumental function, and it can be utilised as a normative paradigm for making decisions in the policy process. This can happen to the extent that the utilised economic paradigm is at odds with the human rights paradigm as a source of normative guiding principles. As the focus here is centrally on the issue of knowledge in the mean-ends sense, these issues are beyond the scope of this paper. On the tension between neoclassical economics and human rights, see, for example, Balakrishnan and Elson (2008: 1–4 and Balakrishnan and Elson (2011): 11–12.

  18. For European Court of Human Rights cases, see, for example: Hatton and others vs United Kingdom (Application No. 36022/97); (Giacomelli vs Italy, Application No. 59909/00). For European Committee on Social Rights case, see International Association Autism-Europe (IAAE) vs France (Complaint No. 13/2002).

  19. While describing the burdensome nature of the process of conducting HRIA on government budget cuts on women in Coventry, Harrison notes that ‘gathering robust evidence (qualitative and quantitative) on which to base the human rights analysis required several months of intensive research’. This included ‘accessing local and national government statistical data, collecting analysis by other organizations, and interviewing relevant individuals’ (Harrison 2011): 176.

  20. Various courts have had to weigh this issue. In the UK context, cases in which impact assessment has been considered include R (Kaur and Another) v. The London Borough of Ealing [2008] EWHC 2062; The Queen on the Applications of Zanepa Hajrula, and Mura Hamza v. London Councils [2011] EWHC 861.

  21. Here, proportionality analysis serves an important function. As CESCR has emphasised in the aftermath of the economic crisis, any policy change or adjustment should be ‘necessary and proportionate’ (CESCR/48th/SP/MAB/SW). It should be noted also that lack of resources does not provide a justification for lack of monitoring the realisation of human rights. In General Comment 3, CESCR has emphasised that ‘the obligations to monitor the extent of the realization, or more especially of the non-realization, of economic, social and cultural rights, and to devise strategies and programmes for their promotion, are not in any way eliminated as a result of resource constraints’ (CESCR 1990): Para. 11.

  22. Pierson evaluates political institutions in juxtaposition with market mechanisms and notes that ‘combined with the weakness of competitive mechanisms and learning processes, as well as the short time horizons characteristics of politics, the bias means that tendencies towards path dependence in political development are often particularly intense’ (Pierson 2004): 43–44

  23. For a ‘critical appraisal’ of human rights mainstreaming, see Rooney and Harvey (2013). Rooney and Harvey warn that mainstreaming can also co-opt human rights discourse and undermine the capacity of human rights to provide an instrument for criticising orthodox approaches to governing.

  24. (HRI/GEN/2/Rev.5)

  25. (E/C.12/2008/2)

  26. Wales became the most recent country to set up long-term well-being goals in its legal system with the adoption of Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

  27. For an overview of the various units and practices, see e.g. Dreyer and Stang (2013).

  28. In Finland, the Parliamentary Committee for Future does active research on the future and deliberate issues related to future.

  29. In Israel, for example, a Commission for Future Generations operated from 2001 until 2006. Its function was mainly to advise the parliament on issues and legislation that it considered to be of relevance for future generations.

  30. In Hungary, the Ombudsman responsible for the protection of the interests of future generations contributes to the preparation of legislation on environmental protection, and the mandate arises from the right to healthy environment. After the introduction of the new constitution in January 2012, a new position of Commissioner for Fundamental Rights was created, and the Ombudsman responsible for the protection of the interests of future generations now serves as a deputy to the Commissioner.

  31. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office in every incoming government issues a Report on the Future, and each ministry drafts a ‘futures review’.

  32. In addition, as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Highest Attainable Standard of Health Paul Hunt notes in his inquiry on HRIA, in designing a methodology for impact assessments, there are two distinct approaches. The first focuses on developing ‘a self-standing methodology for human rights impact assessments just as has been done for environmental and social impact assessments. The other approach is to develop a methodology for integrating human rights into other types of impact assessments’ (Hunt 2006: 5). For possible strengths and weaknesses of each method, see De Beco (2009): 149.

  33. See also De Beco (2009): 159.

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  1. Faculty of Law, Oxford Martin School Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Jaakko Kuosmanen

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Kuosmanen, J. Human Rights, Public Budgets, and Epistemic Challenges. Hum Rights Rev 17, 247–267 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-016-0403-9

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