Applying an International Human Rights Framework to State Budget Allocations: Rights and Resources

Human rights based budget analysis projects have emerged at a time when the United Nations has asserted the indivisibility of all human rights and attention is increasingly focused on the role of non-judicial bodies in promoting and protecting human rights. This book seeks to develop the human rights framework for such budget analyses, by exploring the international law obligations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in relation to budgetary processes. The book outlines international experiences and comparative practice in relation to economic and social rights budget analysis and budgeting.

The book sets out an ICESCR-based methodology for analysing budget and resource allocations and focuses on the legal obligation imposed on state parties by article 2(1) of ICESCR to progressively realise economic and social rights to 'the maximum of available resources'. Taking Northern Ireland as a key case study, the book demonstrates and promotes the use of a ‘rights-based’ approach in budgetary decision-making.

The book will be relevant to a global audience currently considering how to engage in the budget process from a human rights perspective. It will be of interest to students and researchers of international human rights law and public law, as well as economic and social rights advocacy and lobbying groups.

Financial Taxes and the Sand in the Wheels of Financialization:Legal Challenges for the EU Directive Implementing Enhanced Cooperation in the Area of Financial Transaction Tax

One of the many results of the Global Financial Crisis was the insight that the financial sector is under-taxed compared to other industries. In light of the huge bailouts and continued subsidies for financial institutions that are characterized as too-big-to-fail demands came on the agenda to make finance pay for the mega-crisis it caused. The most prominent examples of such taxes are a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) and a Financial Activities Tax (FAT). Possible effects of such taxes on the economic constitution and increasingly in particular on the European Single Market have been discussed controversially over the last decades already. Especially with the decision of eleven EU member states to adapt an FTT using the enhanced cooperation procedure a number of additional legal challenges for implementing such a tax have emerged. This paper analyzes how tax measures of indirectly regulating the financial industry differ, what legal challenges they pose, and what their overall contribution would be in making the financial system more stable and resilient. It also analyzes the legal arguments against enhanced cooperation in this area and the legal issues related to the British lawsuit against the Commission’s Directive proposal in the European Court of Justice on grounds of the extra-territoriality application of tax. The paper concludes that the feasibility of an FTT is legally sound and given the FTT’s advantages over a FAT the EU Directive should be implemented as a first step for a European-wide FTT. However, significant uncertainties about its implementation remain at this stage.

"The Constitution in Northern Ireland - After the Scottish Independence Referendum"

This chronicle considers some of the possible developments in the Northern Ireland Peace Process that may be occasioned by the imperatives for wider constitutional change resulting from the Independence Referendum in Scotland in September 2014. After reviewing the devolution story in Scotland, and the developments leading to the referendum, some of the wider tensions that remain within the UK constitution are reviewed, and their impact on the Northern Ireland settlement are considered. Next, attention is given to the range of issues that are presently undermining the continuing success of the Northern Ireland settlement as a mechanism of government and the possibilities for adapting the constitutional architecture to overcome these difficulties.