Health as a Human Right

At a time when heated debates continue to rage on health, it is also important to look health from a human rights perspective. The appropriate starting point is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  Among other stipulations, article 25(1) of the UDHR provides to the effect that health is a human right (Kennedy, 2009, p.165). UDHR was merely an action plan at the time it was adopted but has since become part of customary international law. Even more important for establishing health as a human right is article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It provides that parties to the covenant are committed to ensuring citizens in their countries enjoy the highest attainable standard of health. The right to health is, therefore, not equivalent to the right to be healthy.

It is the recognition of the difficulty of guarantee that everyone can be healthy that the right to health focuses on the determinants of health (Kennedy, 2009, p.170). These are adequate sanitation, safe and potable water, adequate food and shelter, safe and healthy working conditions as well as a healthy environment. It is the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a body set up to monitor compliance with ICESCR that outlined these determinants in General Comment 14. The rationale is that one can only impact on health by impacting on the underlying determinants. For instance, allowing people to live in a polluted environment is likely to work against their health.

Lastly, health as a right connotes that the government must have a role to play. It does not imply that the government must provide medical care to every person who needs it (Anas, 2005, pp.64-67). Rather, the government has a responsibility to put appropriate policies in place to ensure that those in need of healthcare services can get such services. Besides, courts in some jurisdictions have held that the government has an obligation to provide emergency medical treatment.

References

Anas, G.J. (2005).Human Rights and Health: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at        50.In S.Gruskin, M.A.Grodin, and G.J.Anas & S.P. Marks(Eds.),Perspectives on Health       and Human Rights(pp.63-70).New York:Routlege Taylor &Francis.

Kennedy, E.M. (2009).Health Care as a Basic Human Right: Moving from Lip Service to             Reality. Harvard Human Rights Journal, 22,165-168.

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