Social Justice: Rights Based Approaches, The Right to Development and the Millennium Development Goals

It is simple; health is a human right, and global health is also a human right, therefore, global health is someone's duty. The big issue is whose. In fact, the formula to attain global health is simple too: global health equals public health plus development. Furthermore, international human rights law has made it simple for public health and development professionals to justify why we do what we do: The Right to Health is the legal foundation public health professionals have to promote and improve health for all, and the Right to Development is the human right to the unique process to realize all human rights, health included. The development process was mostly led by various donor nations until the year 2000 when the United Nations (UN) assembly approved the Millennium Declaration and with it set of eight goals to save millions of lives from poverty, hunger, gender discrimination, sickness and environmental disaster. By 2003, the UN had started to raise awareness about the linkages between development and human rights and accountability in reaching the Millennium Development goals (MDGs); and in 2005, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness set principles for effective development. The presentation will combine these concepts into a simple development framework to address the big issue about whose duty it is to reach the MDGs, how international public health professionals can apply three simple rights based approaches to reach these goals, and engage the audience to apply them in their practices.