The Right to Health Under International Law and Its Relevance to the United States
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: In recent years, there have been considerable developments in international law with respect to the normative definition of the right to health, which includes both health care and healthy conditions. These norms offer a framework that shifts the analysis of issues such as disparities in treatment from questions of quality of care to matters of social justice. Building on work in social epidemiology, a rights paradigm explicitly links health with laws, policies, and practices that sustain a functional democracy and focuses on accountability. In the United States, framing a well-documented problem such as health disparities as a "rights violation" attaches shame and blame to governmental neglect. Further, international law offers standards for evaluating governmental conduct as well as mechanisms for establishing some degree of accountability.
Author: Alicia Ely Yamin
Institution: Harvard University
Language: English
Topic: Human Rights and Development
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2020963416