<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"></font></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Human Rights Reader 179</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">WHY HAS THERE BEEN NO WIDER PUBLIC DEBATE ON HUMAN RIGHTS?</b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">
</span></font></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">1. The more well-known human rights, like the freedom of speech or the freedom of assembly protect individuals from assault by the state. Economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), on the other hand, define a claim to entitlements such as food, health, water, education, housing and other.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">2. The rights set-out in the United Nations (UN) Covenant on ESCR require, among other, the 'state' (in general) to perform certain functions and to provide certain services. It is thus much more difficult to pinpoint exactly who within the state is responsible when such rights are not being met. UN bodies are presently working on getting a better grip on such issues.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">3. Governments which discriminate in the provision of health care --or even use it to apply political pressures-- are guilty of violating the human rights (HR) they have signed-on-to. Furthermore, it has been clearly established that states have a duty to protect their citizens from, for instance, health hazards.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">4. Therefore, to comply with their solemnly acquired obligation to progressively realize all HR, governments
<u>have to</u>: </font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">take concrete, direct actions towards respecting, protecting and fulfilling these rights --indeed including ESCR,
</font></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">use available resources on an appropriate scale to implement the actions above (distinguishing inability from unwillingness to use these resources is key),
</font></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">implement the respective HR provisions at the various branches of government (executive, legislative, judiciary and administrative), as well as centrally and locally, and
</font></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .25in"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore">·<span style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </span></span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman">establish effective and credible mechanisms for monitoring progress.
</font></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">But the question is: <u>Have they really</u>?</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">5. Under the influence of donor governments, poor countries have, instead, for long now, promoted a welfare-state-type-social-safety-nets-model that has only served (if at all) the middle-lower class --too often at the expense of further marginalizing the already most disadvantaged. Among other, this has clearly detracted from focusing the public debate on the actual rights of many under-represented (and under-empowered) groups of people.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">6. We thus need to explode the myth that the promotion of safety-nets using overseas development assistance funds can bring about a huge leap forward in HR terms in poor countries (remember the failed 'Structural-Adjustment-With-A-Human-Face' pushed by UNICEF a couple decades ago?).
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">7. At present, development aid is hardly the vehicle capable of helping to overcome the structural barriers behind HR violations. This, even if much more cash is made available --as the infamous Jeffrey Sachs/WHO 'Macroeconomics and Health Report' called for a couple years ago. The same was an example of how the public health institutions of the rich countries, on whose expertise the international funding agencies draw-upon, are set to reshaping national health debates and strategies all over the world to suit
<u>their</u> vision of the global order in health --an order that matches <u>their</u> vision of the global economic order. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></span></font></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">8. The needed leap-forward in the public debate and in the ensuing actual implementation of the legally-based-UN-HR-framework depends crucially on more aggressively pursuing human-rights-capacity-building. This HR Reader promotes an international dialogue (…or a monologue…?) that seeks just that …but this is just a drop in the ocean.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">9. In the absence of an open public debate, an under- and mis-informed public can hardly participate in any critical public HR debate. An educated general public is thus a prerequisite for any meaningful debate on the HR-based framework; only then can claim holders act as such and influence duty bearers by bringing pressure on them.
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">10. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Adopting the HR-based framework should be an outcome of social learning
</i> that is rooted in the experiences of the so many injustices that people know intimately. In practice, this means that the HR-based framework has to make ultimate sense to the grievances perceived by the majority of the people. (S. Koenig)
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="2">11. The question, of course, is why has this public debate been so overdue? Evidently, our priorities must be somehow wrong…
</font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><font face="Times New Roman">Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City</font></span></p>
<div style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1pt; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1.5pt solid">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">
<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><a href="mailto:cschuftan@phmovement.org"><span lang="IT" style="mso-ansi-language: IT"><font face="Times New Roman">cschuftan@phmovement.org</font></span></a></span><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: IT">
<font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">
<font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt">[All Readers can be found in </span><span lang="IT" style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; mso-ansi-language: IT"><a href="http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">
www.humaninfo.org/aviva</span></a></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt"> under No.69]</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt"> </span></font></p></div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">
Mostly adapted from D+C, 33:12, December 2006; D+C, 34:3, March 2007; D+C, 34:6, June 2007; <span style="COLOR: black">HAI News No.141, HAIAP, Colombo, April-June 2007; and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the document
</span>'An Alternative People's Health Plan', National People's Health Assembly II, People's Health Movement, India, Bhopal, March 2007.</span>