Easing resource constraints for public health: Progressive realization of the right to health through the right to development

Despite the historic role of economic development in reducing poverty and associated poverty-related illnesses, health advocates rarely appreciate the connections between the right to health and the right to development in confronting the insalubrious harms of economic globalization. Without an easing of economic constraints, states will be unable to progressively realize their obligations pursuant to the human right to health. However, international trade policies that generate unfair terms of trade obstruct development, hampering states' abilities to reduce poverty and poverty-related illness to the maximum of a state's available resources.

With the right to development acting as a ‘vector' of rights, the realization of each of its component rights remains resource-dependent. Thus, the right to development necessarily includes the growth of GDP as an essential element for easing a country's resource constraints to meet citizen's health rights. International trade policies—purportedly created to promote development—have acted to the detriment of less-developed states and harmed public health. Through the right to development, marginalized states can carry out development and trade policy for economic growth but do so under a framework conducive to the realization of health rights.

This research concludes that the right to development can serve as a powerful tool for states to demand fair terms of trade, producing an international economic order conducive to the reduction of poverty-related illness. Pursuant to this, the authors advocate that states make explicit an exemption that international trade law should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of the right to development.