Health Rights

Health Rights is a multidisciplinary collection of seminal papers examining ethical, legal, and empirical questions regarding the human right to health or health care. The volume discusses what obligations health rights entail for governments and other actors, how they relate to and potentially conflict with other rights and values, and how cultural diversity bears on the formulation and implementation of health rights. The paramount importance of such questions is illustrated, among other things, by the catastrophic health situation in developing countries and current debates about the TRIPS Agreement and health care reform in the United States. The volume is divided into five main parts which focus on philosophical questions about the bases for the right to health or health care; links between health and human rights; global bioethics and public health ethics; intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals; and finally health rights issues arising in specific contexts such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and gender.

Michael J. Selgelid is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Australia and Thomas Pogge, Professor, Yale University, USA and The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Australian National University, Australia

Contents: Introduction; Part I Philosophical Bases for the Right to Health and/or Healthcare: Equality and rights in medical care, Charles Fried; The right to health and the right to health care, Tom L. Beauchamp and Ruth R. Faden; Rights to health care and distributive justice: programmatic worries, Norman Daniels; The right to a decent minimum of health care, Allen E. Buchanan; Broadening the bioethics agenda, Dan W. Brock; The dark side of human rights, Onora O'Neill; Exploring the philosophical foundations of the human rights approach to international public health ethics, Kristen Hessler. Part II Links Between Health and Human Rights: Health and human rights, Jonathan M. Mann, Lawrence Gostin, Sofia Gruskin, Troyen Brennan, Zita Lazzarini and Harvey Fineberg; Health and human rights, Sofia Gruskin and Daniel Tarantola. Part III Global Bioethics and Public Health Ethics: Human rights, Stephen P. Marks; Medicine and public health, ethics and human rights, Jonathan M. Mann; Bioethics and international human rights, David C. Thomasma; Global disparities in health and human rights: a critical commentary, Solomon R. Benatar; The lingua franca of human rights and the rise of a global bioethic, Lori P. Knowles; New malaise: bioethics and human rights in the global era, Paul Farmer and Nicole Gastineau Campos; Improving global health: counting reasons why, Michael J. Selgelid. Part IV Intellectual Property Rights in Pharmaceuticals: Patents and medicines: the relationship between TRIPS and the human right to health, Philippe Cullet; Affordable access to essential medication in developing countries: conflicts between ethical and economic imperatives, Udo SchÃ-klenk and Richard E. Ashcroft; Patents and access to drugs in developing countries: an ethical analysis, Sigrid Sterckx; Medicines for the world: boosting innovation without obstructing free access, Thomas Pogge. Part V Health Rights in Context: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Gender: Human rights and public health ethics: responding to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, Jonathan Cohen, Nancy Kass and Chris Beyrer; Structural barriers and human rights related to HIV prevention and treatment in Zimbabwe, J.J. Amon and T. Kasambala; Tuberculosis control and directly observed therapy from the public health/human rights perspective, A.K. Hurtig, J.D.H. Porter and J.A. Ogden; Gender, health and human rights, Rebecca J. Cook; The incompatibility of the United Nations' goals and conventionalist ethical relativism, Loretta M. Kopelman; Name index.