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Volume 22, Issue 1, January 2016 is a Special Issue with the theme 'Fundamental Rights In Crisis'. Issue edited by: Elisabeth Lambert Abdelgawad, Gaëtan CliquennoisAbstract
Because of the so-called ‘austerity policies’ implemented by European institutions and national governments entailing substantial public spending cuts, national fundamental rights structures responsible for considering individual petitions and complaints have seen their resources significantly reduced. Similarly, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which have become specialised in lodging complaints with the European Court of Human Rights, have faced a substantial decrease in their funding. For these reasons, many NGOs active in the protection of human rights seem to have become increasingly dependent for their funding on private foundations led by wealthy financiers who pursue economic, political and judicial objectives that are not always self-evidently compliant with the European standards of fundamental rights protection. The best example is perhaps that of the Open Society Foundations, which funds many NGOs. While scant attention has been paid by scholars to this phenomenon, this increasing dependency of NGOs on ‘economic finance’ will have a deep impact on concentrating and orientating applications towards specific domains and against specific countries. This process could therefore lead to the thwarting of the protection given to certain rights in certain countries that are not seen as priorities for NGOs and private foundations and could seriously compromise the right to make complaints to the ECtHR.
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