Publications

NIHRC Briefing Paper: Human Rights and Budgeting

This briefing paper explores the connection between government budgets and their responsibilities to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights. Human rights monitoring bodies increasingly emphasise the critical role of public budgets in advancing people’s rights—particularly those of marginalised or excluded groups, such as women, children, persons with disabilities, and minorities. The paper aims to better enable government officials to be guided by their human rights obligations at each stage of the budgeting process, including formulation, allocation, implementation, and monitoring. It also provides civil society organisations with insights into the relationship between human rights and budgeting, enabling them to hold governments accountable.

Recommendations

The NIHRC recommends that all NI Executive Departments systematise a human rights-based approach at all stages of the budgeting process, including in the formulating, allocating, monitoring and auditing of budgets. This should include: 

1. the development of systems for analysing the impact of budgetary decisions or proposals on human rights, including the provision of data disaggregated by gender, disability, age, ethnicity, region, income segment and any other grounds considered relevant based on risk of marginalisation; 

2. the development of formal channels of communication and collaboration between NI Executive Departments during the formulation and monitoring of budget allocations;

3. the development of a tool for conducting human rights impact assessments – both ex ante and ex post - that consider the potential and cumulative distribution of impacts to ensure that the most vulnerable are not disproportionally affected by budgetary decisions; and

4. embedding the principle of public participation at each stage of the budgetary process, including conducting human rights impact assessments. Participation should be central in the consideration of budgetary allocations, the publication and reporting of information and the assessment, in the execution of budgets, and in the monitoring of the impact of budgets.