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The counter-majoritarian difficulty in a neoliberal world: Socio-economic rights and deference in post-2008 austerity cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2019

KÁRI HÓLMAR RAGNARSSON Open the ORCID record for KÁRI HÓLMAR RAGNARSSON [Opens in a new window]
KÁRI HÓLMAR RAGNARSSON*
Affiliation:
Harvard University Law School, 1557 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
*
†Email: kragnarsson@sjd.law.harvard.edu
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Abstract:

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis courts and rights took a backseat to demands of markets and international financial institutions for austerity. Deference and judicial restraint were prevalent in austerity litigation across various European jurisdictions. This article argues that the traditional view of deference to political branches on socio-economic rights should be revised in our political-economic context. Drawing on the work of German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck on representation failures of democratic institutions in our neoliberal era, the article argues that law’s abnegation in this sphere has the effect of securing and legitimising neoliberal hegemony and serves the interests of owners of financial capital. Deference in order to avoid judicial overreach does not entail deference to democracy as legislatures have come to view financial markets as their constituency alongside the general citizenry. As public finances have become marketised, deference to legislatures amounts to deference to markets. Judicial minimalism creates not more democracy but a specific set of winners and losers. In light of severe representation failures where legislatures become tools of market justice we might, subject to various caveats, view a more active judicial role as democracy-enhancing and as a potential counterweight in favour of social justice.

Keywords

austerityeconomic and social rightseconomic inequalityjudicial reviewneoliberalism
Type
Articles
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 605 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

SJD Candidate, Harvard Law School; Lecturer of Law, University of Iceland; Partner, Réttur – Aðalsteinsson & Partners, Iceland.

References

1 Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis (Vice News 2018) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyz79sd_SDA> at 28:15.

2 Blyth, M, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) 2Google Scholar (defining austerity as ‘a form of voluntary deflation in which the economy adjusts through the reduction of wages, prices and public spending to restore competitiveness, which is (supposedly) best achieved by cutting the state’s budget, debts and deficits’).

3 Council of Europe: Commissioner for Human Rights, Safeguarding Human Rights in Times of Economic Crisis (January 2014) <www.refworld.org/docid/530466ab4.html> 17–20;+17–20;>Google Scholar and see e.g. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, Res. 1884 (2012), 26 June 2012; Center for Economic and Social Rights, Assessing Austerity. Monitoring the Human Rights Impacts of Fiscal Consolidation (February 2018) <http://www.cesr.org/sites/default/files/Austerity-Report-Online2018.FINAL_.pdf>.

4 Crouch, C, The Strange Non-Death of Neo-liberalism (Polity, Cambridge, 2011).Google Scholar

5 Panitch, L and Konings, M, ‘Myths of Neoliberal Deregulation’ (2009) 57 New Left Review 67, 81.Google Scholar

6 ‘Socio-economic rights’ refers to human rights that construct or impact individuals’ and groups’ socio-economic status, but more specifically to the rights protected in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Doc A/6316 (1966) [hereinafter ICESCR], with the exception of cultural rights. Particularly here the focus is on the right to an adequate standard of living, food and housing, social security and health, as well as the right to work and favourable conditions of work.

7 See e.g. the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, allowing individual complaints, UN Doc A/RES/63/117 (5 March 2009), entering into force on 5 May 2013.

8 Nolan, A, ‘Not Fit for Purpose? Human Rights in Times of Financial and Economic Crisis’ (2015) European Human Rights Law Review 358 (contemplating reasons for the absence of socio-economic rights);Google Scholar Dowell-Jones, M, ‘The Sovereign Bond Markets and Socio-Economic Rights Understanding the Challenge of Austerity’ in Riedel, E et al. (eds), Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) 51, 81Google Scholar (noting the absence of the socio-economic rights framework from government responses to the crisis); and more generally e.g. Nolan, A (ed), Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014); andCrossRefGoogle Scholar Civitarese, S et al. (eds), Social Rights in Europe in an Age of Austerity (Routledge, New York, NY, 2018).Google Scholar

9 See section III.

10 J Laffranque et al., Seminar Background Paper, 25 January 2013, Implementing the European Convention on Human Rights in Times of Economic Crisis, para 3, <www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Seminar_background_paper_2013_ENG.pdf>

11 Dowell-Jones (n 8) 51 (‘very little progress has been made in addressing the gap between international legal standards and the realities of macroeconomic, fiscal, and social policy, as debates around Europe’s austerity crisis have made clear’).

12 E.g. Alston, PG and Reisch, NR (eds), Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bantekas, I and Lumina, C (eds), Sovereign Debt and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019);Google Scholar Balakrishnan, R et al., Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights (Routledge, New York, NY, 2016);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bohoslavsky, J and Cernic, JL (eds), Making Sovereign Financing and Human Rights Work (Hart, Oxford, 2014);Google Scholar Nolan, A et al. (eds), Human Rights and Public Finance: Budgets and the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights (Hart, Oxford, 2013);Google Scholar M Tushnet, ‘The Inadequacy of Judicial Enforcement of Constitutional Rights Provisions to Rectify Economic Inequality, and the Inevitability of the Attempt’ (13 February 2018), available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3123085>; and Young, KG (ed), The Future of Economic and Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 E.g. Human Rights Council, Res. 20/10, The effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, UN Doc A/HRC/RES/20/10 (10 July 2012); Report of the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights: Development of guiding principles for assessing the human rights impact of economic reform policies. UN Doc A/HRC/37/54 (20 December 2017) [hereinafter Human Rights Impact Assessment Report].

14 See Nolan 2015 (n 8) (arguing that previous scholarship had been overly occupied with the question of courts and justiciability and that this emphasis on policymaking is necessary).

15 Streeck, W, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Camiller, P and Fernbach, D trans, 2nd edn, Verso, New York, NY, 2017).Google Scholar

16 Ibid.

17 Dennis v United States, 341 US 494, 525 (1951) (Frankfurter J concurring) (applying deference to uphold a law aimed at the US Communist Party criminalising subversive speech).

18 Bickel, A, The Least Dangerous Branch (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1986) 16.Google Scholar Among the most prominent literature are JH Ely, Democracy and Distrust (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980);Google Scholar Dworkin, R, Freedom’s Law (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996);Google Scholar Waldron, J, Law and Disagreement (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Kavanagh, A, ‘Deference or Defiance? The Limits of the Judicial Role in Constitutional Adjudication’ in Huscroft, G (ed), Expounding the Constitution: Essays in Constitutional Theory (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008) 184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Ibid.

21 Daly, P, A Theory of Deference in Administrative Law (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, NY, 2012) 7–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Dyzenhaus, D, ‘The Politics of Deference: Judicial Review and Democracy’ in Taggart, M (ed), The Province of Administrative Law (Hart, Oxford, 1997) 279, 286.Google Scholar Further on deference see e.g. TRS Allan, ‘Judicial Deference: Doctrine and Theory’ (2011) 127 Law Quarterly Review 96; AL Young, ‘Deference, Dialogue and the Search for Legitimacy’ (2010) 30 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 815.

23 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (8 December 1948), GA Res 217A (III), UN Doc A/810 at 71 (1948) (arts 22–26).

24 See Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (13 December 2006), 2515 U.N.T.S. 3 (arts 24–28); Convention on the Rights of the Child (20 November 1989), 1577 U.N.T.S. 3 (arts 24–32); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (18 December 1979), 1249 U.N.T.S. 13 (arts 10–14).

25 European Social Charter (18 Oct. 1961), 529 U.N.T.S. 89; European Social Charter (revised) (May 3, 1996), 2151 U.N.T.S. 277. See O De Schutter and M Sant’Ana, ‘The European Social Charter’ in G de Beco (ed), Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms of the Council of Europe (Routledge, New York, NY, 2012) 71.

26 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, 26 October 2012, O.J. (C 326) 391 (arts 27–36); see generally e.g. Hervey, TK and Kenner, J (eds), Economic and Social Rights under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights – A Legal Perspective (Hart, Oxford, 2003).Google Scholar

27 See e.g. Koch, IE, Human Rights as Indivisible Rights: The Protection of Socio-Economic Demands Under the European Convention on Human Rights (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden, 2009); andCrossRefGoogle Scholar Leijten, I, Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Jung, C, Hirschl, R and Rosevear, E, ‘Economic and Social Rights in National Constitutions’ (2014) 62 American Journal of Comparative Law 1043, 1053.Google Scholar

29 King, J, Judging Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012) 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Examples include India (right to life); see e.g. Muralidhar, S, ‘India: The Expectations and Challenges of Judicial Enforcement of Social Rights’ in Langford, M (ed), Social Rights Jurisprudence (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009) 5,Google Scholar and, from the cases discussed in section III below, Germany (dignity, Existenzminimum), Latvia (property), Portugal (equality).

31 E.g. A Neier, ‘Human Rights and Social Justice: Separate Causes’ in D Lettinga and L van Troost (eds), Can Human Rights Bring Social Justice? Twelve Essays (Amnesty International Netherlands, Amsterdam, 2015) 47, 49.

32 D Landau, ‘Political Institutions and Judicial Role in Comparative Constitutional Law’ (2010) 51 Harvard International Law Journal 319, 320–1. See also J Waldron, ‘The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review’ (2006) 115 Yale Law Journal 1346; and King (n 29) (both making certain explicit assumptions regarding the institutional background when making arguments against judicial review and for judicial minimalism on socio-economic rights, respectively).

33 E.g. International Transport Roth GmbH v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] EWCA Civ 158 (U.K.), para 87 per LJ Brown (‘greater or lesser deference will be due according to whether the subject-matter lies more readily within the actual or potential expertise of the democratic powers or the courts. Thus, … macro-economic policy will be relatively remote from judicial control’).

34 For a summary of and responses to these arguments see e.g. King (n 29) 3–6; A Nolan et al., The Justiciability of Social and Economic Rights: An Updated Appraisal, CHRGJ Working Paper No. 15 (August 2007) <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1434944>; and International Commission of Jurists, Courts and the Legal Enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Comparative Experiences of Justiciability, 2008 (written by Christian Courtis).

35 See in international law e.g. the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR (n 7), art 8(4) (creating a ‘reasonableness’ test, where states ‘may adopt a range of possible policy measures’); and CESCR, An Evaluation of the Obligation to take Steps to the ‘Maximum of Available Resources’ Under an Optional Protocol to the Covenant, UN Doc E/C.12/2007/1 (21 September 2007), para 11 (‘the Committee always respects the margin of appreciation of States’) and, for a highly developed argument of judicial restraint in this field, King (n 29).

36 Hrd. 9 Feb. 2017 (223/2006), Dagrún Jónsdóttir v the Icelandic State (Icel.).

37 Socio-economic rights appear in Irish constitutional law as a mixture of directly justiciable rights, unenumerated rights and non-justiciable directive principles.

38 See Report of the UN independent expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Mission to Ireland, UN Doc A/HRC/17/34/Add.2 (17 May 2011); Center for Economic and Social Rights, Mauled by the Celtic Tiger (2012).

39 Per Costello J in O’Reilly v Limerick Corporation [1989] I.L.R.M. 181 (Irel.).

40 Sinnott v Minister for Education [2001] 2 IR 545 (Irel.) and TD v Minister for Education [2001] 4 IR 259 (Irel.). See A Nolan, ‘Ireland: The Separation of Powers Doctrine vs Human Rights’ in Langford (n 30) 16; A Nolan, ‘Welfare Rights in Crisis in the Eurozone: Ireland’ in C Kilpatrick and B De Witte (eds), Social Rights in Times of Crisis in the Eurozone: The Role of Fundamental Rights’ Challenges, EUI Working Paper LAW 2014/05, 30; and P O’Connell, Vindicating Socio-Economic Rights (Routledge, New York, NY, 2012).

41 J. & J. Haire & Company Ltd & Ors v Minister for Health and Children & Ors [2009] IEHC 562 (Irel.).

42 Ibid 30, citing in Re Article 26 and the Planning and Development Bill, 1999 [2000] 2 IR 321, 357 (Irel.).

43 E.g. Leijten, I, ‘The German Right to an Existenzminimum, Human Dignity, and the Possibility of Minimum Core Socioeconomic Rights Protection’ (2015) 24 German Law Journal 23;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Winkler, I and Mahler, C, ‘Interpreting the Right to a Dignified Minimum Existence: A New Era in German Socio-Economic Rights Jurisprudence?’ (2013) 13 Human Rights Law Review 388;Google Scholar Klatt, M, ‘Positive Rights: Who Decides? Judicial Review in Balance’ (2015) 13 International Journal of Constitutional Law 354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Bundesverfassungsgerticht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] 9 February 2010, 1 BvL 1/09, 1 BvL 3/09, 1 BvL 4/09 (Hartz IV) (Ger.), para 157.

45 Bundesverfassungsgerticht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] 18 July 2012, 1 BvL 10/10, 1 BvL 2/11 (Assylum Seeker Benefits Case) (Ger.), para 62.

46 Bundesverfassungsgerticht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] 16 October 2018, 2 BvL 2/17 (Ger.), para 18 (‘weiten Spielraums politischen Ermessens’).

47 See L Pech, ‘France: Rethinking “Droits-Créances”’ in Langford (n 30) 267; and D Roman, ‘France’ in S Civitarese et al. (n 8) 27.

48 Conseil Constitutionnel, Decision No 2010-617 DC, 9 November 2010, at para 8, available at <http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/root/bank_mm/anglais/en2010_617dc.pdf>, quoted in Roman (n 47) 35.

49 See G Ribeiro, ‘Judicial Activism Against Austerity in Portugal’ (ICONnect Blog, 3 December 2013) <http://www.iconnectblog.com/2013/12/judicial-activism-against-austerity-in-portugal/> (criticising the Portuguese Court’s approach as, inter alia, anti-democratic).

50 Italy would be another candidate, see text at (n 126).

51 Const. Court, 21 December 2009, Case No. 2009-43-01 (Lat.), available at < http://www.escr-net.org/caselaw/caselaw_show.htm?doc_id=1285934&country=13565> paras 20, 24, 24, 30.2.

52 Canotilho, M et al., ‘Austerity Measures under Judicial Scrutiny: The Portuguese Constitutional Case-law’ (2015) 11 European Constitutional Law Review 155, 183. See alsoGoogle Scholar Martins, AG, ‘Constitutional Judge, Social Rights and Public Debt Crisis, The Portuguese Constitutional Case Law’ (2015) 22 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 678;CrossRefGoogle Scholar de Brito, MN, ‘Putting Social Rights in Brackets? The Portuguese Experience with Welfare Challenges in Times of Crisis’ (2014) European Journal of Social Law 87.Google Scholar

53 See (n 27).

54 ECtHR 7 May 2013, Case No. 57665/12, Koufaki & Adedy v Greece.

55 Ibid paras 36–41.

56 Ibid para 48.

57 E.g. ECtHR 8 October 2013, Case No. 62235/12, Mateus & Januário v Portugal; ECtHR 1 September 2015, Case No. 13341/14, Da Silva Carvalho Rico v Portugal; ECtHR 6 December 2011, Case No. 44232/11, Mihăieş & Senteş v Romania; ECtHR 6 December 2011, Case No. 42923/10, Sulcs v Latvia; ECtHR 4 July 2017, Case No. 75916/13, Mockienė v Lithuania.

58 ECtHR 14 May 2013, Case No. 66529/11, N.K.M. v Hungary; ECtHR 2 July 2013, Case No. 41838/11, R.Sz. v Hungary; ECtHR 25 June 2013, Case No. 49570/11, Gáll v Hungary.

59 ECtHR[GC] 13 December 2016, Case No. 53080/13, Béláné Nagy v Hungary, para 114.

60 B Warwick, ‘“Protecting the Public Purse” in cuts to Social Security: Krajnc v Slovenia’ (Strasbourg Observers, 30 November 2017) <https://strasbourgobservers.com/2017/11/30/protecting-the-public-purse-in-cuts-to-social-security-krajnc-v-slovenia/>.

61 See the recent development of an express subsidiarity principle in the ECHR, cf. art. 1 of Protocol 15 to the ECHR (not yet in force).

62 See (n 51) above.

63 R (on the application of DA and others) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2019] UKSC 21, 15 May 2019 (finding no violation of the ECHR (Human Rights Act) regarding a benefit cap introduced to incentivise work and applying the ‘manifestly without reasonable foundation’ test).

64 See Daly (n 21).

65 AM Bickel, ‘Foreword: The Passive Virtues’ (1961) 75 Harvard Law Review 40.

66 Streeck (n 15).

67 W Streeck, How Will Capitalism End? (Verso, New York, NY, 2017).

68 Streeck (n 15) 20–6; Streeck (n 67) 73–94.

69 Streeck (n 15) xvi, citing Kalecki for the term.

70 Ibid 33.

71 C Crouch, ‘Privatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy Regime’ (2009) 11 British Journal of Politics and International Relations 382.

72 Streeck (n 67) 47–50.

73 Ibid 18–19, 50–1; Streeck (n 15) xxxiv–xxxv.

74 See also CESCR (n 35) para 10 (stating that when considering State defences based on ‘resource constraints’, the Committee would consider ‘objective criteria’ such as ‘whether the country was undergoing a period of economic recession’).

75 As also explained below, see (n 196), this view does not reject the notion that individual scenarios do involve extraordinary time-sensitive situations that require immediate drastic responses.

76 Streeck (n 15) 79–84. See also ibid xxii–xxiii (noting that the model is not perfect due, inter alia, to overlap between the constituencies and complexities of institutional function, but it serves well its purpose of highlighting problems of representation in the neoliberal era).

77 Ibid 79.

78 Ibid 84.

79 See (n 133) and accompanying text for a discussion of ‘structural power’ of creditors and mechanisms of influence.

80 Streeck (n 15) x; Streeck (n 67) 120.

81 Streeck (n 67) 121–7.

82 See Ban, C, Ruling Ideas: How Global Neoliberalism Goes Local (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016) 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar (defining ‘global neoliberalism as a set of historically contingent and intellectually hybrid economic ideas and policy regimes derived from specific economic theories whose distinctive and shared goals are the following: make economic policies have credibility with financial markets, ensure trade and financial openness, safeguard internal and external competitiveness’ (emphasis added)).

83 Streeck (n 15) 84 (discussing a comment by the head of Deutsche Bank in 2000 that politics need to be ‘formulated with an eye to the financial markets’, referring to the markets as ‘a kind of “fifth estate”’).

84 Streeck quotes Alan Greenspan in 2007: ‘We are fortunate that, thanks to globalization, policy decisions in the US have been largely replaced by global market forces … The world is governed by market forces.’ Ibid 85.

85 Ibid 86.

86 Streeck (n 15) 58–63.

87 Ibid 59–60. See also Hayek, FA, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1976) 230Google Scholar (famously referring to the belief in social justice as ‘probably the gravest threat to most other values of a free civilization’).

88 Streeck (n 15) 61.

89 E.g. Kennedy, D, ‘The Stakes of Law, or Hale and Foucault!’ (1991) 15 Legal Studies Forum 327; andGoogle Scholar Hale, R, ‘Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State’ (1923) 38 Political Science Quarterly 470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Streeck (n 15).

91 García, H Alviar, ‘Neoliberalism as a Form of Authoritarian Constitutionalism’ in García, H Alviar and Frankenberg, G (eds), Authoritarian Constitutionalism (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 2019) 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar and see my discussion of neoliberal constitutionalism at (n 177) below.

92 Streeck (n 15) 58–9.

93 Foucault, M, The Birth of Biopolitics, Lectures at the College de France, 1978–79 (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2008).Google Scholar See also W Brown, Undoing the Demos (Zone Books, New York, NY, 2015) 67 (observing that under neoliberalism the market is the only ‘site of veridiction’, the market is ‘truth’).

94 Scheppele, KL, ‘Parliamentary Supplements (or Why Democracies Need More Than Parliaments)’ (2009) 89 Boston University Law Review 795, 806.Google Scholar

95 For a distinct but related argument see A Poulou, ‘Austerity and European Social Rights: How Can Courts Protect Europe’s Lost Generation?’ (2014) 15 German Law Journal 1145 (arguing that courts in Europe could have acted with legitimacy to protect rights against post-2008 austerity measures as, during the crisis, standard separation of powers principles and democratic deliberations did not function as intended and by the same token standard arguments against judicial review have limited bite); and C Kilpatrick, ‘Constitutions, Social Rights and Sovereign Debt’ in T Beukers et al. (eds), Constitutional Change through Euro-Crisis Law (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017) 279 (arguing that claims of ‘juristocracy’ and ‘judicial activism’ are unconvincing during sovereign debt bailouts as domestic democratic procedures are overridden by conditions set by external lenders and normal decision-making procedures are often expressly deviated from).

96 Dennis v United States 341 US 494 (1951) 525 (Frankfurter J concurring).

97 There is significant literature on courts as pro-democracy institutions, see e.g. Scheppele (n 94); and see Daly, TG, The Alchemists: Questioning Our Faith in Courts as Democracy-Builders (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (mapping and criticising the literature on the widespread belief in courts as democracy-builders).

98 Ely (n 18) (making an argument in favour of judicial review in the context of policies disadvantaging ‘discrete and insular minorities’, citing United States v Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938), that, mostly for reasons of historical discrimination, do not make progress within political institutions.) See also FI Michelman, ‘Welfare Rights in a Constitutional Democracy’ (1979) Washington University Law Quarterly 659 (arguing that Ely’s ideas fit well with adjudication of minimum social welfare rights as these are necessary for participation in representative government.)

99 The data are complicated, see e.g. Hager, SB, Public Debt, Inequality, and Power: The Making of a Modern Debt State (University of California Press, Oakland, CA, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that US sovereign debt is increasingly concentratedly held by the richest Americans); and Deutsche Bank, Who Owns Different Countries’ Government Bonds? (2016), chart reproduced in B Bryan, ‘Here’s Who Holds the World’s $60 Trillion in Sovereign Debt’ (Business Insider, 9 September 2016) <https:// www.businessinsider.com/heres-who-holds-the-worlds-60-trillion-in-sovereign-debt-2016-9> (showing considerable variation in foreign vs domestic and bank vs nonbank holding of government bonds across various countries).

100 Roos, J, Why Not Default? The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2019) 70–5.Google Scholar

101 Tushnet, M, ‘Notes on Some Aspects of the Taxonomy of “Generations” of Rights’ (2016) 2 Journal of Institutional Studies 475, 481Google Scholar (‘second generation rights are rights against “the market”, and in particular against the results of the invisible hand processes not attributable to any individual or group of individuals except insofar as market structures are underwritten by law’).

102 A Tooze, ‘A General Logic of Crisis’ London Review of Books (5 January 2017) 3; and, responding, W Streeck, London Review of Books (19 January 2017).

103 See Scheppele, KL, ‘A Realpolitik Defense of Social Rights’ (2004) 82 Texas Law Review 1921.Google Scholar

104 See e.g. D Landau, ‘The Promise of a Minimum Core Approach: The Colombian Model for Judicial Review of Austerity Measures’ in Nolan (n 8) 267.

105 Scheppele (n 103).

106 Kilpatrick (n 95) 310. ‘Troika’ refers to the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that acted as coordinators of bailout lending.

107 Statement by the European Commission, ECB and IMF on the eighth and ninth review mission to Portugal (3 October 2013) (‘sovereign yields reversed earlier gains amid market concerns about the predictability of policy making following short-lived political turbulence and Constitutional Court rulings that blocked key policy measures’), cited in J Gomes, ‘Social Rights in Crisis in the Eurozone: Work Rights in Portugal’ in Kilpatrick and De Witte (n 40) 78, 79.

108 European Commission, The Economic Adjustment Programme for Portugal – Seventh Review, Winter 2012/2013, 72, available at <http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/occasional_paper/2013/pdf/ocp153_en.pdf>.

109 As explained in Ribeiro (n 49) the Court’s main emphasis was that constitutional equality principles prevented targeted cuts of the rights of public servants and general taxation was the preferred mechanism by which to aim for fiscal balance.

110 RM Unger, False Necessity (2nd edn, Verso, London and New York, NY, 2001) 530–5. The concept was further developed in CF Sabel and WH Simon, ‘Destabilization Rights: How Public Law Litigation Succeeds’ (2004) 117 Harvard Law Review 1016 and discussed in the express context of socio-economic rights adjudication in Young, KG, Constituting Economic and Social Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) 268–71 andCrossRefGoogle Scholar Rodríguez-Garavito, C and Rodríguez-Franco, D, Radical Deprivation on Trial (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2015) 186–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Young (n 110) 269.

112 See Sabel and Simon (n 110) 1062. Their work focuses on public law litigation involving mostly administrative institutions.

113 Ibid 1089.

114 See Rodríguez-Garavito and Rodríguez-Franco (n 110) 175–84.

115 ‘Democratic pedigree’ describes democratic qualities of particular rules; see R Gargarella, ‘Democracy and Rights in Gelman v Uruguay’ (2015) 109 AJIL Unbound 115 and Klare, K, ‘Critical Perspectives on Social and Economic Rights, Democracy and Separation of Powers’ in García, H Alviar et al. (eds), Social and Economic Rights in Theory and Practice: Critical Inquiries (Routledge, New York, NY, 2015) 3.Google Scholar

116 Klare (n 115) 19–21.

117 Ibid 20–1.

118 Kennedy, D, ‘Proportionality and “Deference” in Contemporary Constitutional Thought’ in Perisin, T and Rodin, S (eds), The Transformation or Reconstitution of Europe: The Critical Legal Studies Perspective on the Role of the Courts in the European Union (Hart, New York, NY, 2018) 29, 35.Google ScholarPubMed

119 Klatt (n 43) (drawing on Robert Alexy’s optimisation theory).

120 R Dixon, ‘Creating Dialogue about Socioeconomic Rights: Strong-Form Versus Weak-Form Judicial Review Revisited’ (2007) 5 International Journal of Constitutional Law 391 (legislative ‘blind spots’) and King (n 32) (on legislative inattention to rights).

121 Kavanagh (n 37) and Daly (n 21).

122 E.g. Human Rights Impact Assessment Report (2017) (n 13).

123 See (nn 54–61) and accompanying text.

124 R Spanó, ‘Universality or Diversity of Human Rights? Strasbourg in the Age of Subsidiarity’ (2014) 14 Human Rights Law Review 487; R Spanó, ‘The Future of the European Court of Human Rights—Subsidiarity, Process-Based Review and the Rule of Law’ (2018) 18 Human Rights Law Review 473; and Saul, M, ‘The European Court of Human Rights’ Margin of Appreciation and the Processes of National Parliaments’ (2015) 15 Human Rights Law Review 745.Google Scholar

125 See (n 51) and accompanying text.

126 Corte Costituzionale, Judgment No. 70 of 2015 (It.). See Faraguna, P, ‘The Economic Crisis as a Threat to the Stability of Law’ (2016) 8 Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 249;Google Scholar Bergonzini, C, ‘Case Note: The Italian Constitutional Court and Balancing the Budget’ (2016) 12 European Constitutional Law Review 177;Google Scholar Tega, D, ‘Welfare Rights and Economic Crisis before the Italian Constitutional Court’ (2014) European Journal of Social Law 6.Google Scholar

127 In the more recent Corte Costituzionale, Judgment No. 250 of 2017 (It.) the Court upheld a revised version of the legislation as the legislature had conducted much more scrutiny.

128 See generally Draft report of the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) on the legal framework of the Council of Europe for the protection of social rights, CDDH-SOC(2017)001 (17 May 2017), available at <https://rm.coe.int/draft-report-of-the-steering-committee-for-human-rights-cddh-/168073450c>; C O’Cinneide, ‘Austerity and the Faded Dream of a “Social Europe”’ in Nolan (n 8) 169.

129 European Committee of Social Rights, 7 December 2012, Collective Complaint No. 76/2012, Federation of employed pensioners of Greece (IKA-ETAM) v Greece, paras 79–80.

130 D Landau, ‘A Dynamic Theory of Judicial Role’ (2014) 55 Boston College Law Review 1501, 1522–3.

131 See the European Fiscal Compact, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (1 February 2012) <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_DOC-12-2_en.htm>. The role of supranational institutions and the EU will be addressed in section V below.

132 This final category – austerity without market-based justifications or external pressure – mostly falls outside the model explored here, but this does not mean that socio-economic rights infringements are justified. Germany is a possible example; see Oxfam, ‘The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality. Germany Case Study’ (September 2013) <https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/cs-true-cost-austerity-inequality-germany-120913-en_0.pdf>.

133 Roos (n 100) 68–82.

134 See Schmidt, V, ‘Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and “Throughput”’ (2013) 61 Political Studies 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

135 Newfoundland (Treasury Board) v N.A.P.E. [2004] 3 SCR 381, para 3 (Can.).

136 Purdy, J, ‘Neoliberal Constitutionalism: Lochnerism for a New Economy’ (2014) 77 Law and Contemporary Problems 195.Google Scholar

137 Citizens United v FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (preventing limitations on campaign spending by organisations).

138 Brown (n 93) 152–73.

139 Janus v American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, 585 U.S. __, 26 (Kagan, J., dissenting) (2018).

140 Chaoulli v Quebec (AG) [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791 (Can.).

141 Choudhry, S, ‘Worse than Lochner?’ in Flood, C et al. (eds), Access to Care, Access to Justice (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2005) 75.Google Scholar

142 Porter, B, ‘A Right to Health Care in Canada: Only if You Can Pay for It’ (2005) 6 ESR Review 8.Google Scholar

143 See generally on scepticism of the progressive potential of the judiciary e.g. Tushnet, M, Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1999);Google Scholar Hirschl, R, Towards Juristocracy (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004);Google Scholar Moyn, S, Not Enough. Human Rights in an Unequal World (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 2018) 198–201; and Daly (n 97).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

144 P O’Connell, ‘The Death of Socio-Economic Rights’ (2011) 74 Modern Law Review 532.

145 E.g. Galanter, M, ‘Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change’ (1974) 9 Law and Society Review 95; and, in the specific case of socio-economic rights,Google Scholar Landau, D, ‘The Reality of Social Rights Enforcement’ (2012) 53 Harvard International Law Journal 189;Google Scholar Ferraz, OLM, ‘Harming the Poor through Social Rights Litigation: Lessons from Brazil’ (2011) 89 South Texas Law Review 1643;Google Scholar Cross, F, ‘The Error of Positive Rights’ (2001) 48 UCLA Law Review 857, 880–7.Google Scholar

146 Tushnet (n 11) 4 (noting that NGOs and, more importantly, ombudspeople and similar officials have at least in some jurisdictions increasingly ensured representation of the poor in socio-economic rights litigation).

147 O’Connell (n 144) 552 (arguing that ‘because of a tacit and implicit acceptance of neo-liberal orthodoxy’, courts are unlikely to advance socio-economic rights).

148 Barroso, LR, ‘Counter-Majoritarian, Representative and Enlightened: The Roles of Constitutional Courts in Democracies’ (2019) 67 American Journal of Comparative Law 109, 118Google Scholar (an ideological critique ‘views the Judiciary as a traditionally conservative body, which oversees the distribution of power and wealth in society’).

149 See e.g., among the growing literature from U.S. public law scholars dealing with economic inequality Rahman, KS, Democracy against Domination (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, NY, 2016); and the socio-economic rights literature cited above (nn 12–14).Google Scholar

150 See K Andrias, ‘Inequality and Political Economy in Constitutional Doctrine’ (Law and Political Economy Blog, 1 June 2018) <https://lpeblog.org/2018/06/01/inequality-and-political-economy-in-constitutional-doctrine/> [hereinafter Andrias, ‘Inequality and Political Economy’]; and K Andrias, ‘The Fortification of Inequality: Constitutional Doctrine and the Political Economy’ (2018) 94 Indiana Law Journal 5.

151 Andrias, ‘Inequality and Political Economy’ (n 150).

152 Tushnet (n 11).

153 See O’Connell (n 144) 539 (although O’Connell does not identify deference as a tool to (re)define rights).

154 Barroso (n 148) 119 (‘in some countries, for many reasons, the Judiciary is more progressive than the legislative branch’).

155 In some systems courts are required to look to international law, see e.g. South Africa, Section 233 of the Constitution, and Argentina, Section 75(22) of the Constitution.

156 See S Issacharoff, ‘Judicial Review in Troubled Times: Stabilizing Democracy in a Second Best World’ (1 December 2018). NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 18-51, available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3298966>.

157 H Alviar García, ‘Distribution of Resources Led by Courts: A Few Words of Caution’ in Alviar García et al. (n 115) 67, 69–70.

158 Ibid 69.

159 A phrase famously attributed by Margaret Thatcher.

160 Balakrishnan et al. (n 12) 8.

161 Rodríguez-Garavito and Rodríguez-Franco (n 110) 189–192; and Young (n 110) 262–87 (exploring courts as actors of experimental governance in the context of socio-economic rights).

162 Tushnet (n 11) 6.

163 Weak-form judicial review and destabilisation rights can be taken as two ways to get at this issue.

164 Landau (n 130) 1527–8.

165 A different comparison would involve technocratic institutions (e.g. central banks or administrative agencies) or executive action by governments but this falls outside of the scope of the analysis.

166 See, e.g., on the overall influence of supranational structures, Krisch, N, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) 20–1Google Scholar (‘the prospect of domestic constitutionalism shaping global governance or controlling its impact is very limited’).

167 See generally Beukers et al. (n 95).

168 See Jaklic, K, Constitutional Pluralism in the EU (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the interplay between EU law and national constitutional law in Euro-crisis law, see, e.g., Kilpatrick (n 95) 310–19; A Baraggia, ‘Conditionality Measures within the Euro Area Crisis: A Challenge to Democratic Principle’ (2015) 4 Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law 268; and A Poulou, ‘Financial Assistance Conditionality and Human Rights Protection: What is the Role of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights?’ (2017) 54 Common Market Law Review 991.

169 E.g. Streeck (n 15) 105 (describing the EU generally as a ‘machine for the liberalization of European capitalism’); Scharpf, FW, ‘The Asymmetry of European Integration, or Why the EU Cannot Be a “Social Market Economy”’ (2010) 8 Socio-Economic Review 211;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Höpner, M and Schäfer, A, ‘Embeddedness and Regional Integration: Waiting for Polanyi in a Hayekian Setting’ (2012) 66 International Organization 429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

170 See also Garben, S, ‘The Constitutional (Im)Balance between “the Market” and “the Social” in the European Union’ (2017) 13 European Constitutional Law Review 23.Google Scholar

171 See Hayek, FA, ‘The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism’ in Individualism and Economic Order (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1948) 255.Google Scholar

172 Salomon, M, ‘Of Austerity, Human Rights and International Institutions’ (2015) 21 European Law Journal 521 and Poulou (n 168).Google Scholar

173 See S Garben, ‘The European Pillar of Social Rights: An Assessment of Its Meaning and Significance’ (forthcoming 2019) Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies.

174 O Larsson and D Naurin, ‘Split Vision: Multidimensionality in the European Union’s Legal Policy Space’ (forthcoming 2019) International Studies Quarterly (studying a large number of CJEU judgments for a systemic tilt along the two dimensions of (a) European integration and (b) varieties of capitalism).

175 Kilpatrick (n 95) 315–17.

176 See e.g. on the case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court FC Mayer, ‘Defiance by a Constitutional Court—Germany’ in A Jakab and D Kochenov (eds), The Enforcement of EU Law and Values: Ensuring Member States’ Compliance (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017) 403; and on the much publicised issue of arrest warrants Pliakos, A and Anagnostaras, G, ‘Fundamental Rights and the New Battle over Legal and Judicial Supremacy: Lessons from Melloni’ (2015) 34 Yearbook of European Law 97.Google Scholar

177 Alviar García (n 91) 41.

178 Tushnet, M, ‘The Globalisation of Constitutional Law as a Weakly Neo-liberal Project’ (2019) 8 Global Constitutionalism 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

179 Purdy (n 136).

180 See generally on the historical influence of neoliberal thinkers Slobodian, Q, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2018) Ch 6;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in practice: ECJ Case C-438/05 International Transport Workers’ Federation and Finnish Seamen’s Union v Viking Line ABP and OÜ Viking Line Eesti (2007) and ECJ Case C-341/05 Laval un Partneri Ltd v Svenska Byggnadsarbetareftrbundet et al. (2007) (famously outlawing certain collective labour action as restrictions of the fundamental freedoms).

181 See Adams, M et al. (eds), The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints (Hart, Oxford and Portland, OR, 2014).Google Scholar

182 Constitution of the Kingdom of Spain of 1978, with amendments, Section 135.3.

183 A Boadle and M Ayres, ‘Brazil Senate Passes Spending Cap in Win for Temer’ (Reuters, 13 December 2016) <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazil-senate-passes-spending-cap-in-win-for-temer-idUSKBN142203>.

184 See Alviar García (n 157) 70–1.

185 For Spain, see Sanchez, L Díez, ‘Spain: Dealing with the Economic through Constitutional Reform and Limited Parliamentary Intervention’ in Beukers et al. (n 95) 199, 208. For Brazil, see (n 183).Google Scholar

186 See Kelemen, RD and Teo, TK, ‘Law, Focal Points, and Fiscal Discipline in the United States and the European Union’ (2014) 108 American Political Science Review 355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

187 See (n 52) and accompanying text.

188 Decision C-288 of 2012 (Colombian Constitutional Court); see Espinosa, MJ Cepeda and Landau, D, Colombian Constitutional Law: Leading Cases (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017) 360–9.Google Scholar

189 See generally Roznai, Y, Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: The Limits of Amendment Powers (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017).Google Scholar

190 This is true, for example, for Spain, see Díez Sanchez (n 185). The Colombian Constitutional Court reviewed the 2011 fiscal sustainability amendment under its version of an unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine, see (n 188). See also B Mendonça Bertotti, ‘(Un)Constitutional Amendment No. 95/2016 and the Limit for Public Expenses in Brazil: Amendment or Dismemberment?’ (ICONnect Blog, 24 August 2018) <http://www.iconnectblog.com/2018/08/unconstitutional-amendment-no-95-2016-and-the-limit-for-public-expenses-in-brazil-amendment-or-dismemberment>.

191 Tushnet (n 11).

192 Pistor, K, The Code of Capital (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2019).Google Scholar

193 See (n 74) and accompanying text.

194 Warwick, B, ‘Socio-Economic Rights during Economic Crises: A Changed Approach to Non-Retrogression’ (2016) 65 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 249, 251–2; and, generally,Google Scholar Gross, O and Aoláin, F Ní, Law in Times of Crisis: Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

195 See also Warwick (n 194) (criticising the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for excessively leaning towards an ‘accommodation’ approach in a 2012 guidance to states as to responses to the financial crisis).

196 A court may, for example, accept a government’s justification that in a crisis swift action was required and a thorough process was not practically possible. Accepting such a justification in an individual case is significantly different from granting broad deference in the sphere of socio-economic policy.

197 See Simon and Sabel (n 110).

198 Tushnet (n 11) 8.

199 This ability to adapt is transformismo in Gramsci’s terminology; see Gramsci, A, The Prison Notebooks (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1971). See alsoGoogle Scholar Wills, J, Contesting World Order: Socioeconomic Rights and Global Justice Movements (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (exploring the role of socio-economic rights and social movements in the context of neoliberal hegemony drawing on Gramsci’s work).

200 E.g. Unger (n 110).

201 Relatedly, Sabel and Simon (n 110) 1080–2 discuss a potential ‘web effect‘ of destabilisation rights where ‘[p]olycentricity [is] viewed as an aid, not an obstacle, to problem solving’ as one act of destabilisation creates an opening for further disequilibria, etc.