A/HRC/40/57 hope or intent of extracting more favourable settlements than for the rest of the creditors and/or investors.26 VI. Human rights impact assessments Principle 17 – Basis and purposes of a human rights impact assessment States and creditors should carry out human rights impact assessments of economic reform policies considered and taken in response to acute economic and financial crises that are likely to cause adverse human rights impacts. States should also carry out regular and periodic human rights impact assessments of short-, medium- and long-term economic reform processes in less challenging economic times. A human rights impact assessment of economic reform policies should: (a) Prompt investigation of and analyse the extent to which the proposed measures, in combination with other economic measures and policies being or to be implemented, could contribute to fulfilling the State’s human rights obligations or potentially undermine them; (b) Serve to demonstrate how proposed measures, jointly with other economic measures and policies being or to be implemented, could impact the human rights of the whole population, particularly the individuals and groups most disenfranchised or at risk; (c) Identify any prima facie retrogressive measure as well as alternative economic policy options that could be the least restrictive of human rights and avoid any impermissible retrogression; (d) Establish a (non-exhaustive) list of preventive and mitigating measures to ensure conformity of the economic reform policies considered with the State’s human rights obligations. Commentary 17.1 An ex ante human rights impact assessment is a structured process to review alternative policy options and analyse the impacts of proposed measures on human rights.27 The process contributes to evidence-based policymaking by making human rights impacts more visible on the basis of historical experience, and provides a firmer basis for forecasting potential impacts and assessing the effects of proposed prevention, mitigation and compensation measures. 17.2 Human rights impact assessments can provide empirical evidence to properly assess the proportionality and legitimacy of economic measures from a human rights perspective and ensure that women’s rights will be taken into account. Hence, all States should prepare human rights impact assessments in order to determine whether the economic reforms under consideration are consistent with their human rights obligations. States’ decisions on economic policies should be consistent with the outcome of human rights impact assessments. These assessments should be widely published in accessible forms and discussed with affected people, and include options discussed and agreed upon. 17.3 Considering ways to prevent or tackle an economic crisis includes, for example, countercyclical measures, full or partial debt relief and medium- or longterm suspensions of the creditors’ payments, and tax policy reviews. 17.4 The analysis should include various policy options, including budget cuts, new tax measures, monetary policies and other adjustment measures such as labour 26 27 See A/72/153 and Corr.1. See Center for Economic and Social Rights, Assessing Austerity: Monitoring the Human Rights Impacts of Fiscal Consolidation, briefing, February 2018. 17