The Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Persons Belonging to Marginalized and Vulnerable Groups in Times of Financial Crisis: How to Reconcile the Irreconcilable?

The present article aims to investigate the impact on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights of contemporary financial crisis and economic recession as well as of the measures for alleviation of debt and debt-service burdens adopted by countries. Indeed, enjoyment of all human rights requires that adequate resources are allocated to this goal by States; however, available resources are increasingly limited and resource allocation undermined by measures adopted by states with the purpose of ensure the strict compliance with the commitments derived from foreign debt. From this perspective, the article analyses the extent to which human rights obligations in the field of economic, social and cultural rights can be modified in response to the global financial crisis and to sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms and the limits, if any, to which anti-crisis measures should be circumscribed from a human rights law perspective.