PHA-Exchange> The right to health: more than rhetoric -Lancet (4)

[Claudio]

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From: Khosla, Rajat and Paul Hunt 


Many thanks for sharing the information about the Lancet editorial. Could I please request you to send the following message from Prof Paul Hunt, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, to the members of the list? 

Rajat Khosla

Senior Research Officer to Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Human Rights Centre

University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. 

Email: rkhosl at essex.ac.uk 

  

>From Dr Hunt:
I appreciate the comments of Alison Katz and others regarding the Lancet editorial that highlighted just one chapter (chapter two) of my latest report to the UN Human Rights Council. I really welcome the Lancet drawing attention to my report. But, of course, in a short editorial it is not possible to capture the nuances of a 28 page study. I appreciate that we all have too much to read but may I encourage you to take a look at the entire report? It can be found at:

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/4session/A.HRC.4.28.pdf 

 

To be clear, I do not argue - as Alison states - that "the two major obstacles to the right to health are failures on the part of NGOs and health professionals".

 

In brief, the report argues that the health and human rights movement faces "a range of major obstacles, such as inadequate budget support for the health sector, as well as the continuing resistance of the present Government of the USA to economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of health" [para 49.] The report also makes some observations about the role of WHO [paras 10, 50 and 53].

 

Because of the shortage of space, the chapter focuses on two particular obstacles that are limiting the growth and effectiveness of the health and human rights movement. One is the problem that most established human rights NGOs give insufficient attention to health and human rights [paras 31-37]. The other is that relatively few health professionals have yet understood the potential of human rights to assist their work [paras 38-47].

 

As the report says, there are many other obstacles confronting the health and human rights movement. Some are internal to the movement, some are external. They all need attention. Some of my other reports draw attention to some of these other obstacles.

 

Wim Deceukelaire kindly pasted my report's conclusions. Actually, these were the conclusions to the entire report - not the conclusions to the chapter that Alison was talking about. [The conclusions to chapter two can be found at paras 48-54.]

 

The point I wish to especially emphasise is that human rights have a contribution to make: to analysis, to advocacy, to policy formulation, to on-the-ground operationalisation, to the empowerment of those living in poverty, and so on. Human rights offer no magic solutions because we do not live in fantasyland. But human rights have a contribution to make - and it is that contribution that my numerous UN reports try to explore and illustrate, inspired by civil society and others.

 


[Prof Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health]

 

 



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