Global justice through a human right to breastfeeding

Since the 1970s, the battle to protect a right to breastfeed has united maternal and child health advocates, public health officials, and human rights experts against irresponsible corporate marketing and in support of global breastfeeding policy. Yet three decades after the first regulatory framework to protect breastfeeding was adopted by the World Health Organization, countless corporate violations continue to undermine fundamental rights to health and a woman's right to choose how to feed her child.

Using an historical policy lens to trace the evolution of global responses to these global harms, this research finds that global breastfeeding policies have been limited in challenging the marketing of breastmilk substitutes as these policies have shifted away from a rights-based approach to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding remains largely absent under the human rights framework, with the right to health neglecting this public health imperative for global health policy. This research concludes that a rights-based approach to global breastfeeding policy--focusing on breastfeeding as a means to health capability--would prove instrumental to the realization of health.

Based on this conclusion, this research advances a human right to breastfeeding, defining and delineating the unique rights-holders and duty-bearers under a global framework for realization of the right to health. As such, a right to breastfeed can be seen as a pillar of the right to health - by which the mother/child dyad can make claims against the international community for global health policies that will protect, promote, and support this fundamental right in global health policy.