Chapter 1: Introduction and background 1.1 Context and objectives Over the past decade, the relationship between economic policies and human rights has attracted increased attention from scholars and lawyers, as well as UN human rights monitoring bodies, including treaty bodies and special procedures. While, traditionally, human rights monitoring bodies were reluctant to discuss issues of resource mobilisation for compliance with human rights, this has changed in the past decade. Increased attention to economic and financial topics crystallised with the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis, with increased attention to historic levels of inequality within and between countries. It is now almost inevitable for human rights monitoring bodies3 to discuss resource creation for human rights compliance and address the negative impact some economic policies, such as austerity measures, exert on the exercise of human rights. Thus, topics that in human rights fora were seldom discussed a few years ago – illicit financial flows, tax-avoidance and evasion, as well as tax havens – have begun to be a more common focus among human rights advocates and monitoring bodies. This study looks at the ‘jurisprudence’ of human rights monitoring bodies: treaty bodies and special procedures. It encompasses a range of documents, from ‘Concluding Observations’, ‘General Comments’ and public statements on the part of treaty bodies, to thematic and country reports on special procedures. The purpose of this study is to ascertain, based on a detailed examination of this jurisprudence, the current interpretation of the scope and content of an obligation to mobilise resources for human rights realisation. It details the constituent elements of this obligation. With a view to strengthening its application, at the end of each chapter in the ‘Concluding observations’ section, the report identifies those aspects of the obligation to mobilise resources that human rights monitoring bodies might usefully clarify in the future. Despite increased attention paid by human rights monitoring bodies regarding the obligation to mobilise resources, and the highly developed analytical and policy proposals they have devised to assess states’ compliance with this obligation, this has not yet translated into sufficient practical impact. Thus, the study also proposes recommendations on how the obligation to mobilise resources might be strengthened in the future. This study follows a groundbreaking report undertaken by the IBAHRI Task Force on tax abuses, poverty and human rights. The 2013 report put forward a number of recommendations to states and the legal profession on the need to articulate human rights and fiscal policies,4 which are essential elements of states’ obligation to mobilise resources for the human rights realisation. 3 In the context of this study, reference to human rights monitoring bodies refers to both special procedures and treaty bodies. 4 IBAHRI Task Force, Tax Abuses, Poverty and Human Rights (IBAHRI 2013), available at www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail. aspx?ArticleUid=4A0CF930-A0D1-4784-8D09-F588DCDDFEA4 accessed 20 October 2017. 20 The Obligation to Mobilise Resources: Bridging Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Economic and Fiscal Policies   December 2017