The Right to Health debate
Jonny Currie, a third year medical student from Bristol University reports on a public interview hosted by the medical humanitarian NGO Merlin between BBC broadcaster Edward Stourton, and another hero of mine, Paul Hunt, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. I was there too and I think Paul definitely won everyone over. I also just want to draw your attention to all of Paul’s marvellous reports which he has submitted to the Human Rights Council and I would strongly encourage you to read them if you can - Rhona
Paul Hunt, The UN Special Rapporteur on The Right to Health
The universal “right to the highest attainable standard of health” is both a widely applauded but all the while under-realised concept. Deliberations on a human ‘right to health’ abound from debates within the scholarly classroom right up to multilateral symposia in the UN. To add to this diverse mix, the humanitarian aid agency Merlin alongside other interested parties convened in a small upper-room in a London club to give the public the opportunity of interviewing Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the “Right to Health” on what such a concept means, and how we as a global society can go about enacting it.
Numerous figures from the NGO and development arena assembled to hear Edward Stourton, a Radio 4 broadcaster and marvellously inquisitive interviewer, provide Professor Hunt the chance to give his conceptions of this human right, the barriers to its realisation, and what his job entailed. Mr Stourton provided a certain flair of interviewing that at times served well to put Professor Hunt on the spot, though he rose well to the challenge.
Paul Hunt’s job himself is to, on invitation from a state government, investigate into whether a country is meeting its obligation under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which amongst other rights defines what the ‘right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’ means for state- and non-state actors. Professor Hunt gave numerous examples of the utility he felt of using the “prism” of human rights for health: to empower disadvantaged groups in a country to afford them equality of access to health services and health-promoting activities; to instil an element of accountability in government structures; and in ‘mainstreaming’ their use to ensure all organisations and institutions make a series of moral behaviours and policies their normative benchmarks.
At one point he made reference to the impressive progress the international HIV/AIDS movement has made in utilising a human rights discourse, specifically in South Africa in calling upon its government to increase access to antiretrovirals amongst its population. Human rights have “shaped to some degree” Professor Hunt proposed the programmes and policies of HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, particularly for excluded groups. Yet, the ‘right to health’ is yet to become universally accepted “currency” and many other areas abound in which the human rights paradigm could lend to a move towards global positive change.
Presently, arguments still go on of whether so-called ‘positive’ rights are misplaced and utopian, demanding greater resources from the state, whereas ‘civil and political’ rights which enshrine democratic values such as a right to vote, free speech etc. aren’t the correct avenue to pursue. Though a ‘right to health’ recognises the issue of lack of resources (‘progressive realisation’ means governments must prove they are progressing on making a ‘right to health’ reality but only as is within their economic means) it makes no explicit claim as to what extent state governments, and the international community, should commit resources to health as opposed military or other spending, or whether health funding should be ‘vertically’ channelled through disease-specific programmes or ‘horizontally’ through building health systems capacities.
Finally, it is as yet still unclear of what role ‘non-state’ actors such as NGOs, the pharmaceutical industry and corporations have in contributing to bringing health as human right to fruition. Paul Hunt argued that these groups should play a role, though the picture is blurred as to to whom they should be accountable, and how they would be punished if they failed to act on their duty in this vein.
Particularly alarming was the fact that Paul Hunt admitted that Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the WHO, had failed to date to meet with Paul Hunt himself. That the United States, which has failed to sign numerous human rights conventions including those explicating a ‘right to health’, has refused to meet with the Special Rapporteur is unsurprising. Conversely, that the failure of the Director-General of the institution apparently in charge of protecting and promoting global health has neglected to meet with the one individual entrusted in by the UN to promote the ‘right to health’ is shamefully disappointing and certifies the “acute amnesia” Paul Hunt himself expressed the WHO to suffer from, when it comes to recognising obligations in regard to this right.
Professor Hunt in my opinion gave a rousing speech to an audience of people in different ways committed to realising the human right to which he has committed so much of his time and career. He made clear the value of promoting this right, of utilising a human rights discourse, and passionately and evocatively expressed why he felt the world would be a better place with the realisation of this right. Sadly however, Paul Hunt is but a benevolent minnow swimming in a sea of ineffectual action, bureaucracy, and protection of special interests, which allows certain issues to meaningfully make the global agenda, while others are chronically neglected or insufficiently acted upon. Paul Hunt will step down this year; we need several more Paul Hunts to take his place. Jonny Currie: jonny.currie@googlemail.com
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