A/HRC/34/57 creditors, including international or regional financial institutions. Such reforms have often reduced the legal protection of workers and affected the bargaining power of trade unions, with important implications for workers’ standard of living, economic equality and social cohesion, among others. In a number of cases, these reforms have amounted to violations of human rights obligations and international labour standards, as documented by, among others, the international bodies monitoring these rights. 56. The present report challenges the widespread belief that deregulating the labour market will further growth and employment. An increasing number of studies have actually pointed to the positive economic effects of labour standards, including on productivity and innovation. In addition, evidence that downscaling domestic labour legislation has actually helped to ensure economic and financial recovery is weak. 57. Financial crises are usually not caused by excessive labour regulation and labour deregulation does not help to overcome them. In fact, conventional austerityrelated labour reforms implemented during the last years do not seem to have helped countries recover nor have they resulted in restoring access to employment to precrisis levels. Instead, they have undermined labour and other social rights contained in international law. It is therefore time to question the conventional wisdom that the deregulation of labour markets is a suitable and legitimate approach for responding to financial crises. Rather, the opposite is needed, that is, reform measures guided by the normative content of labour rights contained in international human rights law that foster gender equality, enhance employment and provide better access to these rights for marginalized groups and individuals. VI. Recommendations A. Ensure respect for labour rights through human rights impact assessments 58. It is essential to submit austerity-related reforms to robust human rights impact assessments before they are carried out. 90 First of all, any such impact assessment should include an assessment of the impact of such measures on the population, including whether there are any viable human rights compliant policy alternatives to austerity reforms, before they are carried out and should recommend policies that meet the economic needs of the country in a manner that fully protects human rights. Too often, the measures taken, as in the case of European austerity, have not improved the economic situation, but have, simultaneously, substantially worsening the human rights of millions of people. 59. Human rights impact assessments should feed into both the policymaking of the State considering reforms as well as that of the external actors recommending or requiring such reforms, such as international financial institutions. Such assessments should: (a) Be carried out by an entity possessing sufficient independence from the relevant decision makers; (b) 90 Cover both labour market reforms and other austerity-related reforms; See A/71/305, para. 60. 19