A/HRC/37/54 financial crisis12 and the methodology of human rights impact assessments will contribute to the design of more sustainable responses to financial crises over the short and long term. 10. Through conducting human rights impact assessments, States will be prompted to consider and analyse alternatives that would increase the likelihood of realizing human rights as part of their broader aim of achieving macroeconomic stability and growth. Human rights obligations suggest social investments that can serve as countercyclical tools to address economic downturns. They require a departure from policies that focus solely on achieving short-term macroeconomic targets regardless of the human rights impacts, or which only try to mitigate the most extreme social impacts. Such specific guidance has not yet been adequately developed, but the present report demonstrates the existence of relevant tools, experience and research on which guiding principles for assessing the human rights impact of economic reform policies could be built. 11. In the present report, the Independent Expert describes the evolution in structural adjustment responses to financial crises and the mitigation of adverse social impacts up to the 2007–2008 financial crisis and explains how structural adjustment programmes affect human rights. He argues that, for both economic and legal reasons, economic reform programmes must be inclusive and advance human rights. He identifies the main challenges of developing guiding principles for assessing human rights impacts, including their basis, scope, content, issues related to timing, and some reflections on how to proceed. He concludes with some preliminary recommendations for discussion on the content and format of the guiding principles and proposes the next steps towards developing them. II. Evolution in structural adjustment responses to financial crises and mitigation of adverse social impact 12. While the 2007–2008 international financial crisis was the worst in decades, the origin of the debt crises in Latin America in the 1980s, which had spread globally, was also tied to domestic policy concerns in the United States of America and other developed countries. Following the Latin American crises, advanced economies sought to tackle their high levels of inflation and attract investments by increasing interest rates, which escalated interest payments for borrowers in the developing world. Debtor countries turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bridge finance and for advice on how to deal with the financial impacts of the crises. The structural adjustment policy package that came to be characterized as the “Washington Consensus” became the dominant remedy. As a condition for accessing IMF financing, the reduction or reform of public spending and the liberalization of markets by removing controls and barriers, including on the movement of capital, were proposed. 13. By the mid-1980s, governments, researchers and an emerging international civil society community had begun to voice their concerns about the severe, adverse impact of such policy prescriptions on the ability of countries to promote inclusive growth, develop human capabilities and strengthen fair opportunities for all members of society. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) gave those concerns an official voice with the 1987 publication, Adjustment with a Human Face: Protecting the Vulnerable and Promoting Growth.13 14. For its part, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had already expressed concern, in 1990, about the adverse impact of the debt burden and of the relevant adjustment measures on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights in many countries. The Committee recognized that adjustment programmes would often be 12 13 For a comprehensive summary of concluding observations, general comments and recommendations of United Nations human rights treaty bodies and mechanisms on the impacts on human rights, see OHCHR, “Promoting a rights-based approach to economic stabilization, recovery and growth”, background paper, annex II (April 2013), pp. 16–62. See Giovanni Andrea Cornia and others (eds.), Adjustment with a Human Face: Protecting the Vulnerable and Promoting Growth (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987). 5