A Comparative Framing of Fundamental Rights Challenges to Social Crisis Measures in the Eurozone

SIEPS European Policy Analysis, November 2014

12 Pages Posted: 9 Dec 2014

See all articles by Claire Kilpatrick

Claire Kilpatrick

European University Institute - Department of Law (LAW); University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Bruno De Witte

European University Institute - Department of Law (LAW)

Date Written: November 1, 2014

Abstract

The Eurozone crisis and its management prompted dramatic changes to social rights and entitlements, specifically in the Member States which were most severely affected by the economic downturn. Fundamental rights, including fundamental social rights, from different sources can be a means to contest those crisis-imposed changes to social rights. The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative framing of fundamental rights challenges to social crisis measures in the Eurozone. The paper examines the decline in social rights, broadly defined, in a number of Eurozone Member States intensely affected by the crisis, and analyses the content, location and background of fundamental rights' challenges made to crisis-imposed changes to work and welfare rights in those States. The analysis prompts difficult yet central questions of the role of the EU as a human rights actor, the attitudes of courts in fundamental rights cases, as well as the significance of the Charter as a guarantor of fundamental social rights in the EU.

Suggested Citation

Kilpatrick, Claire and De Witte, Bruno, A Comparative Framing of Fundamental Rights Challenges to Social Crisis Measures in the Eurozone (November 1, 2014). SIEPS European Policy Analysis, November 2014, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2535267

Claire Kilpatrick (Contact Author)

European University Institute - Department of Law (LAW) ( email )

Via Bolognese 156 (Villa Salviati)
50-139 Firenze
Italy

University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

Bruno De Witte

European University Institute - Department of Law (LAW) ( email )

Via Bolognese 156 (Villa Salviati)
50-139 Firenze
Italy

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