Economics, peace and human rights. From theoretical frameworks to public choices
The current tensions - in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere - are dramatic laboratories for testing the connections between economic rules, public policies and fundamental rights.
The war in Ukraine caused a dramatic fall in national income. In the first months of the conflict, Ukraine's GDP plummeted by 30-35 %. In a context of war, civil and political freedoms are often restricted through a state of emergency, repression, and military controls. Millions of Ukrainians have sought protection within the country or in neighbouring countries, creating a high refugee phenomenon. This raised issues of refugee rights, international protection, housing, social and economic integration. The principle of effective rights becomes a challenge and, therefore, how to guarantee health, education, access to work in contexts where essential infrastructure is destroyed? In Ukraine, therefore, the clash is not only military but also a battle over the reduction of opportunities and guarantees for the civilian population. Economic measures (reconstruction, foreign aid, public debt, post-conflict fiscal policies) must also be assessed in the light of the rights to be re-established.
Again, the case of Gaza is a tragic and urgent example of how conflict, occupation, siege and destroyed infrastructure are intertwined with an almost total collapse of the economy and the systematic denial of rights. The conflict that began on 7 October 2023 has resulted in infrastructure losses of around $18.5 billion in the first few months, many times the Strip's GDP. According to World Bank figures, the Palestinian economy went into 'freefall' in the first part of the conflict: Gaza alone saw a drop in economic activity to the point of near collapse. Poverty exploded, in 2024 alone 74.3 % of the Palestinian population was in poverty, today this figure has been far exceeded. Closed borders, restrictions on goods, fuels, electricity and materials have already restricted economic development for years. The environmental impact is massive between pollution, soil destruction, water contamination to the extent that the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) describes the impact as 'unprecedented'. Also discussed was the concept of ecocide in the Strip as a systemic way of destroying the environmental basis of the right to life and habitation. The right to health has been brought to the brink of collapse due to drug shortages, attacks on hospitals, trapped medical personnel, and electricity blackouts, and the right to clean water and sanitation has been severely compromised through the destruction of wells and damaged water facilities. The right to education has been disrupted (schools destroyed, teachers and students victims of the hostilities and the collapse of services) as well as the right to food due to the depletion of agricultural resources and the destruction of food infrastructure, leading to extreme food insecurity, with the risk of famine in some areas. The right to mobility and work has been wiped out, and military occupation and siege not only prevent the right to a dignified life, but build an economy of employment that often has characteristics of extraction and dependency. On a cultural level, heritage, public spaces and symbols have been destroyed to a significant degree, affecting the right to identity and historical memory. In essence, Gaza is a stark and dramatic test of the theory where economic, social and cultural rights have been totally squeezed, not only as a consequence of the conflict, but as a strategy of territorial control.
Reflecting on the difficulties of finding a solution or at least a suspension of these dramatic events, why talk about economics and human rights together.
Geopolitical instability, ecological transition, growing inequalities and technological innovation put an age-old question back at the centre: what is the economy for if not to guarantee a dignified life and effective freedoms? This question is the meeting point between two recent research fields, namely the one on the integration of economic systems and human rights, edited by Francesco Vigliarolo in Economic Systems and Human Rights (Palgrave/Springer Nature), and the one by Janneke Gerards on the general principles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in General Principles of the ECHR (Cambridge University Press).
