A/HRC/37/54 58. Legal basis of the guiding principles: The guiding principles will be based on the normative guidance as set out in human rights treaties and standards and their authoritative interpretation by the treaty bodies and other human rights mechanisms. Given the significant amount of analyses of the recent financial crisis (and subsequent responses) there is an emerging set of principles developed by authoritative bodies that could be used as the basis for assessing the human rights compliance of policy choices and proposed measures. 59. Scope: A key issue to consider is what should trigger the application of the guiding principles. The normative human rights framework indicates that a human rights impact assessment should apply to economic reforms that may result in impermissible retrogression of economic, social and cultural rights. As noted above, economic reforms are not per se problematic under human rights law. Human rights law sets out standards to evaluate whether the processes and substance of economic reform measures are aligned with human rights. 60. Particularly where States implement a combination of measures, the human rights impact assessment should review the potential cumulative impact of those measures, given that it is their accumulation that often results in the most severe impacts. The accompanying human rights impact assessment guidance should propose a set of modules applicable to the different areas of reform so as to provide more specific information and criteria. 61. Timing: The guiding principles will focus on ex ante human rights impact assessments, which should be started as early as possible in the policymaking process if they are to be able to influence the analysis and choice of alternative policy options while also highlighting the importance of regular, ex post reviews. 62. Addressing different situations: The guiding principles will need to provide guidance on how the principles can be applied to the different and particular situations in which potentially retrogressive economic reforms may unfold, for example: (a) acute crisis situations in response to severe economic shocks, where the risk of adverse human rights impacts is heightened and in which the economic and financial crisis requires an urgent response. In such cases, a human rights impact assessment conducted within a short time frame and addressing only the most significant impacts may be all that can be accomplished; (b) medium-term reforms — as is currently experienced where austerity measures stretch into multi-year processes; and (c) accompanying the systematic review of budgets and their distributional assessments, such as those carried out by the Government of the United Kingdom or the annual review of the economic policies of all the European Union member States in the context of the European Semester. 63. In times of acute crisis and rapid policy responses, conducting a sufficiently rigorous analysis requires a dose of realism and some balancing. Depending on the sophistication of the process and the analytical tools chosen, a human rights impact assessment, together with its participatory processes, may take some time to conduct. The guiding principles and accompanying human rights impact assessment methodology would suggest ways in which the assessment could be adjusted to meet tighter time schedules in order to respond in the most acute circumstances. Even where consultation cannot be carried out, governments can nonetheless apply human rights principles to guide basic choices that can be benchmarked against longer-term planning that is supported by participatory processes, such as hearings and committee work on national and sectoral development plans, and annual budget allocations. Where governments have regulatory or social impact assessments in place as part of the planning processes that are used to address fiscal and economic policy reforms, adapting them to address human rights may be an effective short-term approach to ensuring that human rights considerations are taken into account. 64. As governments move into medium-term planning to respond, a human rights impact assessment can be used to both look back and evaluate the short-term measures already taken and propose adjustments and provide evidence for medium- to longer-term planning going forward. 65. For longer-term reforms and more regular reforms, a human rights impact assessment can help governments to focus on building resilience so as to better address the next crisis. 16