AUSTERITY MEASURES AND THEIR IMPACT ON HUMAN RIGHTS: The interaction between the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee of Social Rights

Abstract

Over the past years, the expressions “austerity measures”, “economic crisis” and “troika” have been frequently used in the conversations of most European citizens. Now that most of the countries seem to have rebuilt their economies, we would like to understand the extent of the collateral damages. In this paper, we will be analysing the impact of the adoption of austerity measures on human rights issues. In order to reach this goal, we will be analysing three different cases (the first one was decided by the European Committee of Social Rights, and the others by the European Court of Human Rights). All cases are related to the austerity measures used in Greece and in Portugal at the time of the economic crisis. Drawing on official reports and on previous literature, we have concluded that the austerity policies have had a deep repercussion on human rights. However, that impact can be contained. In a second stage, we have explored the relationship between the two aforementioned institutions and observed that they complement each other, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of work still needs to be done to optimise that interaction, in order to guarantee greater protection to human rights.