A/HRC/28/59/Add.1 I. Introduction 1. The Independent Expert conducted an official visit to Iceland from 8 to 15 December 2014. The purpose of the visit was twofold: to assess the extent to which Iceland has fulfilled its obligations to protect economic, social and cultural rights in the aftermath of its financial banking crisis; and to identify good practices that other Governments could adopt to prevent negative human rights impacts in the context of financial crises and economic adjustment programmes — one of the thematic priorities of the Independent Expert (see A/69/273). 2. During his visit to Iceland, the Independent Expert benefited from discussions with officials from the Ministries of Finance and Economic Affairs, Welfare, the Interior, Education and Foreign Affairs. He met with representatives of the Directorates of Labour and Health, the Central Bank of Iceland, the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Office of the Special Prosecutor, as well as with the President of the Supreme Court and Members of Parliament. He also met with members of the Parliamentary Review Committee, which had been entrusted with following up the report of the Special Investigation Commission set up by the Parliament to study the causes of the banking crisis, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Debtors’ Ombudsman, the Ombudsman for Children, and representatives of the Icelandic Association of Local Authorities, the Housing Financing Fund and Welfare Watch. He also met with the President of the Icelandic Confederation of Labour, the Director of the Confederation of Icelandic Employers, current and former representatives of the banking industry and their lawyers, and members of the International Monetary Fund delegation that was also visiting Iceland that week. The Independent Expert visited the neighbourhood of Breiðholt, which enabled him to better understand certain challenges that Icelandic society face and see at first hand the important work that citizens and local authorities carried out at the community level. The Independent Expert also met with a wide range of civil society organizations and academics. 3. The Independent Expert would like to thank the Government of Iceland for its invitation, its full cooperation and the open and constructive dialogue. He expresses his gratitude to all those who took the time to meet with him and share their thoughts and information. He is grateful to the Icelandic Human Rights Centre, the Institute for Human Rights at the University of Iceland, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Association of Iceland for the support provided during the visit. II. Framework for analysis: financial crises and human rights 4. Policy responses to financial crises raise important concerns regarding the protection of economic, social and cultural rights because such responses are often incompatible with States’ obligation to ensure the progressive realization of those rights and to avoid deliberate retrogressive measures, in particular those that are incompatible with the core obligations relating to each right, and States’ duty to use all available resources to satisfy, as a matter of priority, those minimum obligations.1 The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights asserts that in times of economic crisis, “endeavours to protect the most basic economic, social and cultural rights become more, rather than less, urgent” 2 and it has already emphasized that even in times of severe resource constraints, States must protect 1 2 4 See E/2013/82, paras. 8–21; also A/HRC/17/34, paras. 11–24. See the Committee’s general comment No. 2 (1990) on international technical assistance measures, para. 9.