Public Procurement and Human Rights

The present work tries to give an account of how, in recent years, public procurement has been conceived as an instrument in the hands of the contracting powers that allows them to achieve complementary purposes to those of equipping themselves with works, goods and services. This is known as strategic contracting. One of these purposes must be the protection and defense of human rights, an essential goal in any democratic State. Therefore, it is about imposing mechanisms in the various phases of contracting that ensure the achievement of this complementary purpose. Along with the general reflection on this new concept of strategic contracting, two recent experiences are highlighted, in which the measures to be adopted in contracting processes are specified.