The economy of a country, region, or local government, has a profound effect on local residents’ ability to access and enjoy their human rights. For example, an economy that fails to support adequate, affordable housing for its residents may leave people unhoused, vulnerable to the elements, and without access to basic shelter. The consequences of this misallocation of economic inputs may be dire and even life-threatening. In that instance, the government falls short of its basic legal obligation to protect, respect, and fulfil the human right to adequate housing, as well as other human rights such as the right to an adequate standard of living.
Yet too often, economists and other policymakers directing economic decisions lack knowledge of human rights standards. Particularly at the local level, policymakers may be removed from national-level human rights commitments. They may be unaware that human rights standards apply to every level of government, not just nation states. If these local policymakers do not utilize a human rights framework to guide decisionmaking, they may fail to take human rights impacts of economic decisions into account at all. Instead, they may – whether deliberately or thoughtlessly — prioritize policies that will maximize profits of favoured corporate citizens or influential individuals but will benefit only a few residents.
The antidote to this approach is the concept of a human rights economy. In a human rights economy, decisions about production and trade in goods, as well as decisions regarding generation of revenue, are made with consideration of their impact on human rights. A human rights economy is implemented through a human rights budget that sets out spending allocations designed to protect, respect, and fulfil human rights within a particular governmental subdivision such as a city or county.
This brief video prepared by the Scottish Human Rights Commission explains the basic “what, why, and how” of a human rights budget process: