Chapter 4 | Page 165 ESC rights expenditure prioritise debt repayment at the expense of rights protection, this can be regarded as a human rights violation.116 This problem could be particularly acute during economic downturns. It is argued that the obligation to creditors in such situations overwhelms States trying to protect the ESC rights of their populations.117 Such debt repayment obligations put enormous pressure on the already overstretched public accounts of developing countries, which negatively affects the amount of resources available for ESC rights. Positive or negative effects of borrowing can be examined by looking at how much of these funds are invested in asset building and the capacity of these assets to generate future income to repay the debt. Using bonds and other debt financing instruments to finance investment projects is justified by States as a means to ensure that future taxpayers bear their ‘fair share’ of the cost.118 If borrowed funds are spent on current consumption that provides little or no future earning potential, the debt is likely to weaken the future fiscal capacity of the State and often leads to increased debt burden. Economic discussion of shifting debt burden across generations119 raises questions of what is done with debt and who bears the cost. The State’s ability to make use of debt instruments to provide the necessary funds for investment in social services and infrastructure depends on many factors, such as the level of access to these sources and the level of expected future capacity to meet the debt obligations.120 If money is utilised for investments and to increase public assets, this will accrue benefits to future generations. Thus 116 Ibid., 48. 117 Balakrishnan et al, above n 53, 19. 118 Dwight V Denison and Merl Hackbart, 'State Debt Capacity and Debt Limits: Theory and Practice' in Howard A Frank (ed), Public Financial Management (Taylor & Francis, London, 2006) 315. 119 For example, Werner Z Hirsch and Anthony M Rufolo, Public finance and expenditure in a federal system (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1990). 120 Denison and Hackbart, above n 118.