The right to health: more than rhetoric (6)
-------------------------------------------
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
mailto:rkhosl@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]