The Minimum Core of the Human Right to Health

Abstract

This Report offers a critical interpretation of the idea of ‘minimum core obligations’ associated with the right to health in international, regional and domestic law and practice. Two important methodological complexities affecting this project need to be highlighted from the very outset. First, it cannot be assumed that all uses of expressions such as ‘the human right to health’, ‘the right to health’, or ‘minimum core obligations’ bear the same meaning. Second, in seeking to identify the role played by the idea of minimum core obligations in the law and practice relating to the right to health in various jurisdictions, we must distinguish the concept of such obligations from the use of the words ‘minimum core obligations’. The structure of this report is as follows. In Part II the idea of minimum core obligations corresponding to the right to health is examined as it manifests itself in international law and practice. Parts II and III consider how the same doctrine manifests itself in the context of regional legal orders (II) and state law and practice (III). Given the enormous volume of material potentially relevant here, these latter two parts are necessarily highly selective, with a focus on some of the most fertile cases for grasping the bearing on the minimum core doctrine on the right to health. Finally, in Part IV, the potential role of the minimum core obligations with respect to the right to health are highlighted with respect to development, focusing in particular on their bearing on the Sustainable Development Goals, priority-setting more generally, and the use of indicators.