Health Rights and Realization Comment on "Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?"

Abstract

In their hypothesis published in IJHPM, Lisa Forman and colleagues examined the prominence of the right to health and sexual and reproductive health rights (as well as related language) in four of the key reports that fed into the process of negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Now that the SDGs have been formally adopted, this comment builds on some of the insights of Forman and colleagues to examine the extent to which those rights have been incorporated in SDGs 3 and 5. I argue that sexual and reproductive health rights are relatively well-covered within the SDGs. In terms of the right to health, however, the picture is much less clear. Some of the elements that make up that right are present and correct, but the SDGs have delivered no coherent vision of how a 'right to health' might actually be realized. An important task facing global health and human rights advocates is to continue pushing human rights framings so that progress is made both on meeting the SDGs and on realizing the right to health.

From Almost Empty to Half Full? A Response to Recent Commentaries

“…Third , regarding our contention that universal health coverage ( UHC) correlates with the right to health, Rushton rightly points out that “if UHC equates with a right, it is with the right to access healthcare services—an important aim in itself, but one which is only a part of the wider right to health…[which] must implicate not only health services but also the social and economic determinants of health status.” 3 At the risk of becoming repetitive, we agree entirely, indeed this is an elision we have explored in previous scholarship. 6 …”

“…We acknowledge that our optimism may reflect wishful thinking about the extent of gains achieved! The comments on our paper written by Rushton, 3 Hawkes and Buse, 4 and Williams and Blaiklock, 5 insightfully identify and analyse the gaps and limitations of this analysis and of rights discourse in the SDGs. In this response, we identify four primary insights from these papers that effectively illuminate these gaps as well as outline future directions for research on human rights and global health policy.…”

Exploring the association between the constitutional right to health and reproductive health outcomes in 157 countries

“…Yet, a critique exists that the SDGs have failed to deliver a coherent vision of how this right might be realised. 14 The empirical literature on the constitutional right to health may provide meaningful lessons on whether the inclusion of rights language will ultimately lead to progress towards the realisation of global targets and aspirations. 8 , 11 , 12 , 15 …”