The international human rights lawyer challenges government policies on their excessive impact on the poorest
As the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Chilean lawyer Magdalena Sepúlveda is proving to be one of the most vocal international opponents of austerity. Since being appointed by the UN in 2008, just as the financial crisis hit, she has staunchly argued that austerity policies all over the world are having a "disproportionate impact" on the poor and are undermining the human rights of vulnerable people.
Sepúlveda will be in the UK on for a public event, Austerity on Trial, at the London School of Economics that will pit opponents and defenders of austerity against one another. Speaking in advance of her visit, she leaves no room for misinterpretation of her analysis.
Her words come close on the heels of warnings from a consortium of UK charities that the government is in danger of reneging on its human rights obligations because welfare cuts are leaving thousands of families short of food.
The "cumulative effect" of multiple, ill-thought-through policy changes is devastating for vulnerable individuals and damaging to social cohesion, Sepúlveda believes. In some countries austerity measures "are really ideological," she suggests. "[Governments] are using the [financial] crisis as an excuse to implement a certain agenda."
She acknowledges that governments have the discretion to decide their economic policies, but says that they do have to respect human rights obligations. "The process and the results of these measures are violating the rights of people," she says.
For example, she points to austerity measures that are being designed and implemented without following a democratic process. "They have not respected human rights principles like participation." Any claims that the cost of consulting the public would be too high are simply misleading, she adds. She gives short shrift to any rationalisation of austerity based on there being no alternative. "[Governments] are ignoring the alternatives as if [austerity policies] were inevitable. And clearly they are not inevitable.''
Sepúlveda, 41, has worked in the human rights legal field for the best part of two decades. Her interest has deep roots. She was two years old when Augusto Pinochet snatched power in a military coup in her native Chile in 1973. If the torture and "disappearance'' of thousands of her fellow citizens raised her consciousness of human rights, it was the ballooning poverty rate ("around 40%"), and the devastating effect it had on people's ability to meet basic needs like food and shelter, that galvanised her.
Her visit to the UK is informal so she is prevented by UN protocol from commenting on specific UK government policies, but her wider critique is blistering. Running through a damning checklist of the worst ravages of austerity it is clear she regards both the policies and the processes used to implement them by the UK, and other governments, as nothing short of an assault on the poorest in their populations.
"The responses of governments that we have seen worldwide to confront the crisis through these fiscal cuts or austerity measures affect human rights in several ways. Most of the countries have decreased spending in social protection and they have eroded the social welfare systems. The cuts in welfare benefits have an enormous, disproportionate impact on the poor. People living in poverty depend on social services more."
That some groups are visibly bearing the brunt of austerity is "clear evidence" that governments are not meeting their human rights obligations she argues. "From a rights perspective it's very important to have the principle of equality and non-discrimination, meaning that certain groups should not have a disproportionate impact."
In addition to policies that trigger increases in child poverty and adversely affect groups such as people with disabilities, there has also been an "enormous and very traumatic gender impact". Lone parents – the vast majority of whom are women – are facing some of the worst fallout of austerity everywhere because numerous policies affect them simultaneously, including "cuts in child benefit, unemployment benefits, [and] cuts in care facilities", she says.
Sepúlveda castigates politicians for distracting from the genuine pain people are experiencing by talking about benefit fraud as if it is commonplace. She says most studies show that there is "very, very little" fraudulent activity by poor people. In addition, she says, the deployment of obscure methods of means testing that are very costly administratively, coupled with the crude application of sanctions to individuals who fail to meet arbitrary conditions attached to benefits, have created profoundly "unfair" systems.
Meanwhile, a crucial adjunct to the austerity agenda that is compounding the problem, she contends, is a toxic public discourse that berates and patronises those living in poverty. The skivers versus strivers rhetoric is not unique to the UK, Sepúlveda says. Stigmatisation of the poor has become normal everywhere. "I'm obsessed with this [issue]. Everywhere I go, I hear the same [thing]. The discourse that you see in the media in the UK, like the [idea of] scroungers … you hear it over and over again, everywhere, by policymakers and by the elites."
The reality is "just the contrary", she says. "What happens is that [the poor] have so many obstacles [to improving their situation]. What is important is to really fight these prejudices that are so entrenched in those who are better off [and] which are contaminating public policy. Policymakers are making policies on the basis of negative stereotypes that are not true."
According to Sepúlveda, one of the most impressive developments in international human rights in the past couple of decades has been the acceptance of the "interconnection" between civil liberties and other "economic, cultural and social" rights. Significantly, this has become enshrined in UN treaties and domestic law. The UK is a signatory to the UN international convenant on economic, social and cultural rights. And it is against this backdrop, she says, that austerity must be challenged head-on. "I think the human rights discourse is a very powerful tool to mobilise people's consciousness; to build public support. But not only that – it also provides some accountability mechanism."
Prominent people are beginning to question austerity on the international stage. Sepúlveda's fellow UN rapporteur on food, Olivier De Schutter, recently attacked the impact of austerity on people's ability to feed themselves. More surprisingly, last month the International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, voiced reservations about George Osborne's strategy.
When it comes to impeding the austerity juggernaut, Sepúlveda says, individual human rights cases in courts around the world can have "a very significant impact". However, she warns that with unrest on the streets of countries like Greece already widespread, and more cuts to come elsewhere, there needs to be a concerted effort to raise awareness that austerity is much more than a narrow economic policy.
"I'm afraid that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg now in terms of impact. The great majority of people in several countries that are really suffering … have exhausted all coping mechanisms. I think that we have to mobilise, to raise awareness that there are alternatives. And we should pressure governments for accountability."
Curriculum vitae
Age 41.
Lives Geneva, Switzerland.
Family Married.
Education Monjas Inglesas Reñaca, Viña del Mar, Chile; Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile, bachelor of law; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, postgraduate diploma, constitutional and comparative law; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, postgraduate diploma, human rights; University of Essex, master's of law, international human rights law; University of Utrecht, Netherlands, philosophy PhD, international law of human rights.
Career May 2008-present: UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; 2006-12: research director, International Council on Human Rights Policy, Geneva; 2005‑06: consultant, office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva; 2002-04: co-director, international law and human rights programme, UN mandated University for Peace, San José, Costa Rica; 2000‑02: researcher, Netherlands Institute of Human Rights Research, Utrecht.
Interests Travel.
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