Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Benjamin Mason Meier, JD, LLM, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 100 Haven Ave., Apt. 30C, New York, NY 10032, 212-305-0047, bmm2102@columbia.edu

The right to health was codified in article 12 of the ICESCR as an individual right, focusing on individual curative treatments at the expense of public health programs. This limited right to health has been ineffective in compelling states to address burgeoning inequalities in underlying determinants of health, hampering efforts to operationalize the right to health through public health programs. This research assesses ways in which the human right to health has evolved since its codification in the ICESCR to meet these threats to public health.

This research employs legal and historical analysis to examine the expanding scope of the right to health through its manifestations in various international documents subsequent to the ICESCR. Tracing this evolution in international discourse, states have altered the right to health in accordance with disease threats, medical technologies, and public health theories. However, despite its repeated expansions, the individual right to health remains normatively incapable of addressing the insalubrious societal ramifications of economic globalization.

By examining modern changes to underlying determinants of health, this research concludes that responding to globalized health threats necessitates a collective right to public health. This collective right is both recognized in jurisprudential discourse surrounding the right to health and justified through globalization as an independent right. In creating a framework for discussing public health as a human right, this research finds that international legal bodies could derive measurable indicators for government programs and assure that these governments are held accountable for realizing the highest attainable standard of health.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to

• Assess ways in which the human right to health in article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) has evolved to meet global threats to public health.
• Evaluate human rights frameworks as a means to alleviate the insalubrious ramifications of globalization on underlying determinants of health.

Keywords: Human Rights, International Public Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation