2 C E N T E R F O R WO M E N ' S G LO B A L L E A D E R S H I P Overview and Purposes of the Report I. Resources are critical to the realization of economic and social rights. Article 2.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) states that “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.” The Maastricht Guidelines on violations of economic, social and cultural rights clarifies that a state is in violation of the Covenant if it fails to allocate the maximum of its available resources to realizing human rights. This report examines the many ways that governments can access financial resources in order to fulfill its obligation to use ‘maximum available resources’ (MAR), as first introduced in the Covenant. It draws on a rich set of discussions between economists and human rights experts who met at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership on December 13-14, 2010. Although the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, several UN Special Rapporteurs and other legal experts have made some notable headway, further clarification on what the concept of maximum available resources means and how states can apply it in practice is needed. Often a narrow interpretation is adopted, assuming that available resources have been fixed by previous policy choices and that the government’s main duty lies in efficient administration of these resources. Therefore, the practical applications of MAR have tended to limit analysis to budget expenditures and international assistance, while overlooking other determinants of the full set of resources available to realize human rights—including monetary policy, financial sector policy and deficit financing. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights made a statement in 2007 entitled, “An Evaluation of the Obligation to Take Steps to the ‘Maximum of Available Resources’ Under an Optional Protocol to the Covenant.” However, the statement did not define what constitutes ‘available resources’ beyond stating that it refers to “both the resources existing within a state as well as those available from the international community through international cooperation and assistance.” However, it has used the following indicators in assessing a government’s compliance with this obligation: • Comparing economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) related expenditures vs. expenditures for non-ESCR related areas. • Comparing expenditures in an area (e.g., education, health) with expenditures in the same area by countries at a comparable level of development.