University of Botswana Law Journal - PULP

52 UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA LAW JOURNAL DECEMBER 2010
health care.
Since the late 1980s, the trend has been that international groups, at
times partnered with representatives from state governments, play a back and
forth with the international policies establishing the right to maternal health
care as a human right. International groups (UN agencies, other coalitions,
partnerships, confederations, initiatives and professional federations) inform
the development of the international instruments, which both codify and
establish international community policy on the right to maternal health care.
At the same time, international community policy informs the work that
international groups are doing. For example, over time, international
conferences have formulated maternal mortality as a human rights issue,
resulting in international instruments now treating the right to maternal health
care as a human right. The 1994 ICPD Conference, the 1995 Beijing
Women’s Conference and the 1997 Tenth Anniversary Safe Motherhood
Consultation 57 all focused on maternal mortality as a social injustice and
helped to redefine preventable maternal mortality in terms of being a violation
of rights, including the right to maternal health care.
As Bharati Sadasivam, a former Program Coordinator at Women’s
Environment and Development, has noted, the declarations and statements
from such conferences:
Although lacking the binding nature of treaty law, [have] undeniable
value in advancing reproductive health goals. First, these
declarations and statements add to the practice of customary law.
Although UN conference documents are not legally binding, they
are politically enforceable since they represent a consensus among
all member nations. Second, they shape domestic law by giving
advocates the language to make legal demands, foster a rights
debate and ensure informal obligations on the part of state and nonstate
actors. The impact of conference statements and declarations
on customary and domestic law is critical given the scant
international and domestic jurisprudence on women’s health and the
absence of case law. 58
Adding to this vast body of conference declarations and statements
are statements issued by UN organizations, such as in 1999, when the Health 4
issued a joint statement asserting that for women, “human rights include
access to services that will ensure safe pregnancy and childbirth.” 59 This year,
57 In 1997 a thematic evaluation was conducted to assess the “relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and
impact of UNFPA-supported Safe Motherhood strategies” under the Safe Motherhood Initiative. UNFPA
Safe Motherhood Evaluation, supra note 50, p. 1.
58 Sadasivam, supra note 6, p. 323.
59 World Health Organization, Reduction of Maternal Mortality: A Joint WHO/UNFPA/UNICEF/World
Bank Statement (1999).