A/HRC/37/54 and association. They have also resulted in worsening detention and prison conditions. The right to life and personal integrity has not been spared; economic crises further entrenched by austerity policies have triggered an increase in suicides in some countries, resulted in the exclusion of individuals from life-saving public health care and weakened public healthcare systems to such extent that they have been ill-equipped to respond to epidemics. 6 6. Women, persons with disabilities, children in single-parent families, migrants and refugees and other social groups at risk of marginalization have often been disproportionately affected. For example, the reduction in public services, including childcare facilities, disproportionately affect women. Women are also often the first to be laid off when labour legislation is made more “flexible”.7 7. Austerity policies are often justified by an overly simplified or misleading diagnosis — in particular, blaming excessive public expenditure 8 for fiscal crises without even considering other relevant factors, such as external shocks, insufficient revenue streams, financial deregulation, widening inequalities, depressed wages among low- and middleincome households or other failures owing to globalization. 9 Policy decisions are frequently taken without sufficient consideration of less harmful policy options and reliable analysis of foreseeable outcomes. The information is often not publicly accessible in any meaningful way nor subject to meaningful participation by groups in society that may be adversely affected. Those who typically shoulder a disproportionate part of the cost of adjustments are the most disadvantaged groups who have marginal voice and political power, which makes their situation and the impact on their rights invisible. To date, there is no general framework or methodology for adequately assessing the human right impact of economic reform policies. That makes it extremely difficult to assess the real and often cumulative effects of austerity policies on the entire population and, in particular, the most marginalized segments. 8. In the light of such experiences, in March 2017, the Human Rights Council, in its resolution 34/3, requested the Independent Expert to develop guiding principles for assessing the human rights impact of economic reform policies, in consultation with States, international financial institutions and other relevant stakeholders. To that end, the Independent Expert solicited input from a wide range of stakeholders to inform the development of the guiding principles.10 He would like to thank them for their responses. 9. To complement those efforts, the Independent Expert, with the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) undertook a mapping of the social and human rights impact assessment tools used by States, international organizations and non-State actors. Their responses are available on the website of the Independent Expert. 11 On 9 November 2017, the Independent Expert, in collaboration with OHCHR, organized an expert workshop in Geneva to inform the present report, take stock, share experiences and initiate discussion on the scope and content of the guiding principles. It is expected that developing guiding principles that build on the extensive groundwork laid by United Nations experts with regard to the impact of the 6 7 8 9 10 11 4 See Center for Economic and Social Rights, “Assessing austerity: monitoring the impact of fiscal consolidation”, annex A (forthcoming) for a summary of adverse human rights impacts of adjustment measures identified by human rights bodies, organizations and scholars. See A/HRC/34/57. A more comprehensive discussion of these issues will be included in the forthcoming report of the Independent Expert to the General Assembly, which will focus on how austerity impacts human rights from a gender perspective. See Robert Boyer, “The four fallacies of contemporary austerity policies: the lost Keynesian legacy”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 36, No. 1 (2012), pp. 283–312. See Suzanne Konzelmann and others, “Assessing austerity”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 38, No. 4 (2016). Submissions can be found at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Development/IEDebt/Pages/ DebtAndimpactassessments.aspx. The Independent Expert would like to thank Margaret Wachenfeld and Eva Jespersen and his support team at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for their research assistance.