Socio-Economic Policies for Child Rights with Equity Social Budgeting

1. Socio-Economic Policies for Child Rights with EquitySocial Budgeting Radhika Balakrishnan Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey

2. Human Rights Principles

3. Obligations • The obligation to respect requires states to refrain from interfering with the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. • The obligation to protect requires States to prevent violations of such rights by third parties. • The obligation to fulfil requires States to take appropriate legislative, administrative, budgetary, judicial and other measures towards the full realization of such rights.

4. Obligations • The obligation of conduct requires action reasonably calculated to realize the enjoyment of a particular right. • Ex. Expenditures on health • The obligation of result requires States to achieve specific targets to satisfy a detailed substantive standard. • Ex. Health outcomes

5. Human rights are internationally agreed standards that are indivisible and universal, set forth in landmark documents under the umbrella of the International Bill of Human Rights: UDHR, ICCPR and ICESCR. • Human rights framework draws on the understanding that all human beings have inherent rights, including economic and social rights, which should be fundamentally applied as principle obligations of the State to ensure that individuals are treated with dignity. • Applying a human rights framework to macroeconomic policy allows States to better comply with their obligation to protect economic and social rights.

6. Maximum Available Resources

7. Maximum Available Resources “Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures” International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Article 2.1

8. Maximum Available Resources • The criterion of Maximum Available Resources means that governments cannot ignore human rights obligations on the grounds of lack of resources. Governments must show that they are making the maximum use of available resources toward realizing human rights. • Resource availability does not only depend on the level of output of an economy, its rate of growth, and the level and growth of inflows of resources from other economies. It also depends on how the state mobilizes resources from the people living under its jurisdiction to fund its obligation to fulfill human rights

9. Maximum Available Resources Star

10. Maximum Available Resource Star • Government Expenditure: Government expenditures can fulfill economic and social rights through social spending (spending on education, health etc.) and public investment (infrastructure). • Government Revenue: Taxation is the most important way in which governments mobilize domestic resources to provide public goods, social services and social protection. • Development Assistance: Development assistance can augment the resources available to a government and support the realization of social and economic rights. • Debt & Deficit Financing: Borrowing might positively or negatively effect human rights depending on the assets built through borrowing and sustainability of debt. • Monetary Policy & Financial Regulation: Monetary policy directly affect available resources by influencing interest rate (affecting employment and right to work) and exchange rates (affecting competitiveness in international markets and growth).

11. Government Expenditures

12. Applications to Public Expenditure on Health in Mexico Progressive realization and non-retrogression • Conduct • Trends in real per capita public expenditure on health in Mexico and comparable countries • Outcomes • Maternal mortality rate in Mexico and other comparable countries Non-discrimination and equality • Conduct • Spending by social group • Outcomes • Maternal mortality rate by social group Source: Ramirez Camacho, chp 3 in Balakrishnan and Elson ( eds) 2011

13. Trends in Real Per Capita Public Expenditure on Health, Mexico and Other Latin American Countries(dollars at year 2000 prices)

14. Maternal Mortality and Health Services • In 2005, a study on maternal mortality in Mexico reported the following: ‘75 percent of maternal deaths were due to complications in the last period of pregnancy and these lives were not saved because among other things there exist deficiencies in medical and technological equipment, shortage of safe blood, obstetric care that does not follow technical protocols and guidelines, inexistence of basic supplies to control haemorrhage, mistaken diagnosis and lack of transport for women who are giving birth’ (Castañeda, 2007, p. 208). Quoted by Ramirez Camacho, chp 3 in Balakrishnan and Elson ( eds) 2011 • Health spending as share of GDP fell from 3.5 % in 1992 to 2.7% in 2005.

15. Maternal Mortality Rates, Mexico and Other Latin American Countries (Deaths per 100,000 live births)

16. Equality and Non-Discrimination and Health Services in Mexico Shares of Public Expenditure on Health by Household Decile,2000 • Lowest 10th, 7% Next lowest, 7.6% , • Highest 10th, 11 %, Next to Highest, 13.4 % Shares of Public Expenditure on Health by Social Group,2002 Insured population 50.8% of population 65.1% of total health expenditure Uninsured population 49.19 % of population 34.92 % of total health expenditure • Insured population is better-off urban people with formal employment contracts, who are provided with health care by clinics and hospitals run by social security institutions • Uninsured population is lower income people, especially rural and indigenous people, who are provided with health care by clinics and hospitals run by the Ministry of Health • Since 2003, some reforms to provide ‘Popular insurance’ to rural and indigenous people, but in 2005, 72% of indigenous people were still in the uninsured population

17. Distribution of Maternal Mortality Rates Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births 2002 200320042005 Chiapas 90 105 98 84 Guerrero 97 114 97 124 Oaxaca 99 65 88 99 Nuevo León 27 13 15 26 Mexico 60 63 61 62 No data availableby social group . Locational data used as proxy

18. Use of Maximum of Available Resources • The data suggests that the Mexican government in 2005 was not spending money in ways that fully comply with obligations for realization of right to health. • But can Mexico afford to do more? • Human rights approach would say, lets examine if the government is making use of maximum of available resources. • Balakrishnan, Elson, Heintz and Lusiani ( 2011) suggest that the human rights approach should go well beyond investigating if all the money that has been allocated in the budget has been spent.

19. To examine conduct of expenditure in relation to particular rights, look for data on level and distribution of relevant public expenditure. • To examine results look for data on level and distribution of indicators of enjoyment of the right. • Make comparisons over time and with similar countries. • Are cuts in expenditure indicators of retrogression? • Can the efficiency of public expenditure be increased, to get better results for the same spend?

20. Government Revenue

21. What is Government Revenue? • Governments receive revenue from many sources including, taxation, royalties paid for utilization of natural resources, and profits from public enterprises. • We focus on taxation as this is typically the most important way in which governments mobilize domestic resources.

22. Key Questions • What institutional and distributive issues should be taken into account when determining tax policy? • How does the level and composition of taxes (e.g., income tax, value-added tax (VAT), trade taxes, property taxes) affect the ‘maximum available resources’ and other human rights obligations?

23. Total Tax Revenue as Percentage of GDP, 1965—2009 Source: OECD

24. Tax Revenues by Type of Tax as Percentage of GDP: Turkey, 1980—2010 Source: OECD

25. Composition of Central Government

26. Key Questions • How should tax policy respond to the ‘booms’ and ‘busts’ of economies in order to reduce the negative consequences of the kind of drastic revenue short falls we currently see happening around the world? • To uphold the principle of non-retrogression, any human rights-centered tax policy must be able to manage the ‘booms’ and ‘busts’ of economies in ways which reduce the negative consequences of drastic revenue shortfalls in downturns. • Create a reserve fund (rainy day fund) which additional revenues during good times are placed. These funds can then be used to maintain spending, and prevent retrogression, during bad times. • Stimulus programs should consider the balance between tax cuts and extra spending should take into account human rights principles and obligations.

27. Tax Evasion and Avoidance in Mexico Source: Balakrishnan and Elson (2011), Economic Policy and Human Rights, Figure 5.16, 2003

28. Number of civil penalties against corporations in USA Source: Balakrishnan and Elson (2011), Economic Policy and Human Rights, Figure 6.15.

29. Taxation and Equality • Gender equality and tax policy can be examined from several perspectives. • Explicit and implicit bias. • CEDAW requires that families be based on ‘principles of equity, justice and individual fulfillment for each member’ (General Recommendation 21, para. 4). • It implies that women be treated as equal to men in tax laws: as individual, autonomous citizens, rather than as dependents of men.

30. Taxation is the most important way in which governments mobilize domestic resources. • Mobilizing tax revenue and using these resources to provide public gods, social services, and social protection is a central responsibility of well-functioning government.