ABSTRACT
Emergencies are a very important legal concept. The concept of emergencies poses a direct threat to all constitutional and most human rights, for it represents the suspension of ordinary legal protections during what is often a struggle for national survival. The concept of a national economic emergency has been used very frequently in the twentieth century, by both left-wing and right-wing liberal democratic governments as well as authoritarian governments to justify limiting social provision. Austerity arguments are not always arguments about securing the recognition of a system that will protect social rights. A structural injunction, roughly speaking, is one in which a judge issues an order to a defendant institution to undertake comprehensive structural reforms. Structural reform injunctions are not a panacea for dealing with the institutional competence of courts in constitutional social rights adjudication, least of all with the macro process of welfare reform.
