The international human right to health: what does this mean for our nation and world?

Throughout my career, I have searched for ways to compel access to needed health services of all types for all people in need. My search would be simple if there were a legal mandate in some source of law that required societies through their governments to assure adequate and affordable health care services. Unfortunately, at least in the United States, the right to health is not generally a legal right. Thus, whether one recognizes a right to health depends on one’s political persuasion and moral values. In other words, a “right to health” is an option. But international human rights law—which is now in the course of astonishing and rich development—may provide a legal mandate for a right to health in the United States and other nations. This is the subject of my paper: What does the international human right to health mean for the United States and the world? What is the “right to health?” This preliminary issue is the subject of much debate. I will talk more about this issue later. But for now, a right to health could be understood on a continuum. At a minimum, it could mean a right to conditions that protect health in the population. It might also include civil and political rights with respect to access to population-based and personal health care services. At most, it could also include provision of medical care for the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury for those unable to pay. Defining the content of a right to health is a formidable challenge. But the challenge should not impede the recognition and development of a human right to health in international human rights law. For such definitional problems attend many human rights and particularly those affirmative economic, social and cultural human rights that are now coming into their own in the post-Cold War World. The idea of an international human right to health is gaining attention and currency throughout the world today. For example, in 1998, a Consortium of 1