The European Convention on Human Rights and the economic crisis : the issue of poverty

Abstract

The European Convention on Human Rights is more than ever our common heritage (patrimoine commun) and we share in this respect a common responsibility at national and international level, between judges and scholars. That is why I really appreciate this kind of meeting since it gives us an opportunity to discuss the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention as they are interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights in the context of our contemporary society. That’s really the intelligence of the Convention: through the Court’s interpretation, the rights written in 1950 can have a meaning today in 2013. As legal theorists have observed, the law must be stable yet it cannot stand still. Adaptation and modification have been constant features of the Convention since 1950 and continue to be so today. In this lecture, I will examine the contribution of the European Court of Human Rights to the fight against poverty and social exclusion. I argue in favour of a reading of the European Convention on Human Rights that is aligned with the necessities of the times. In the face of the global financial and economic crisis that developed since 2008, this does not mean sacrificing human rights in the name of austerity and macro-economic discipline; it means improving the protection of the most vulnerable and marginalized segments of the population, in a context in which the rights to access to courts, to housing or to social security have further gained in relevance and importance. I will start by saying a few words about crisis, and particularly economic crisis, and human rights, before examining different aspects of the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law addressing the question of poverty.