Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

Respect for and promotion of the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS is now an entrenched component of the global response to HIV. However, as the global HIV epidemic has turned into a global AIDS epidemic, and as the death toll mounts, one area of human rights—the right to health care—has become fiercely contested. In particular, the degree to which patents on medicines impede what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as the “human right” of access (...) to essential medicines is receiving close scrutiny. The controversy generated by a recent article that argues, “in Africa patents and patent law are not a major barrier to treatment access in and of themselves,” is indicative of the intensity of the debate. (shrink)

This article argues from a South African perspective that national experience in attempting to fulfil the right to health supports the need for an international framework. Secondly, we suggest that this framework is not just a matter of good choice or even of justice but of a direct legal duty that falls on those states that have consented to operate within the international human rights framework by ratifying key treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (...) (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). States can either accept this duty or face with growing pressure from those who believe in global social justice to find lasting solutions to the terrible inequities in global health standards. (shrink)

It is arguable that the delivery of global health has reached an impasse. This is evident not only in unresolved debates that are raging about where to allocate health aid or how to sustain and expand funding for AIDS treatment, but also in challenges facing national health systems that are incapable of purely domestic resolution. But there is some irony and much opportunity in this situation. Not only have the last 20 years seen an unprecedented growth in funding for health, (...) mainly through funding for AIDS, but there has also been a range of initiatives and ideas that have generated better knowledge not only of the determinants of health, but also of how to attain it. Scientists, public health experts, and activists have created a store of intellectual knowledge, technology, and ideas, which, if properly and fairly deployed, might provide the opportunity to re-launch tangible progress towards the progressive realization of the right to health on a global scale. (shrink)