Objective This research project will explore the Greek debt and austerity crisis to consider what it discloses about the influence of European political economy on the principles and practices of legal rights, and with what implications. The term ‘legal rights’ in this work includes human rights as well as the international rights of states and these respective approaches underpin the two component parts of this study. This is a multidisciplinary study that assumes the validity of law as a means of advancing the cause of justice, but recognises that it is shaped in important ways by other dominant narratives. This study is an exploration of that clash of narratives and its effects on justice in Europe.The first part of this research project is animated by the idea of ‘social rights as fiscal risks’, an idea that finds expression in the latest Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of August 2015 between the international creditors and Greece. In exploring the means through which human rights safeguards are being made to disappear under fiscal targets, a case study on the influence of austerity reasoning on what constitutes the public interest as a human rights concept will form part of the first section of the project. The second part of this research project will explore the legality of the bailout agreement when measured against the principle of economic self-determination. A preliminary review of the same MoU would seem to offend any reasonable form of economic self-determination, a principle with a long pedigree in international law and demands by states of sovereignty over their economic affairs. Taken together, the two studies will expose ways in which rights are being shaped by the intellectual justifications, logic and practice of economic and financial policy as played out under the European crisis of debt and austerity. Fields of science social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil societynongovernmental organizationssocial sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracysocial scienceslawinternational lawsocial scienceslawhuman rightshuman rights lawsocial scienceseconomics and businesseconomicspolitical economy Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2015-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF Coordinator EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE Net EU contribution € 86 238,60 Address VIA DEI ROCCETTINI 9 50014 Fiesole Italy See on map Region Centro (IT) Toscana Firenze Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 86 238,60