University of Botswana Law Journal - PULP

80 UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA LAW JOURNAL DECEMBER 2010
Applying the label human rights is in no way a magical panacea or
guarantee of effectiveness with respect to any issue, as the gross
breach between discourse and practice in even the narrow area of
torture attests. Yet, the nongovernmental human rights movement
has already amply demonstrated that it can take issues that were
previously not considered to be human rights issues, such as
landmines, and not only make them so, but also create normative
instruments and standards and mobilize public and state action with
respect to them. 162
Weston writes on the need for a strategy with a “multitude of
mechanisms and techniques” at all levels, “from the most local to the most
global,” engaging all elements of society and proceeding with imagination
and energy to succeed in the abolition of child labor. 163 Such a multifaceted
strategy is necessary to ensure maternal health care for pregnant women, and
thereby prevent maternal mortality. I have presented policy alternatives for
states and individuals to advance international law to strengthen the right to
maternal health care as a human right, and I have briefly examined strategies
in the “extra-legal” realm (such as education and video advocacy) to work to
further develop the right to maternal health care. Continued work is needed.
Providing maternal health care is working to reduce maternal mortality, as
evidenced by the Lancet study, and continuing to advocate for the right to
maternal health care as a human right will continue to prevent maternal
mortality in the future.
162 Yamin, supra note 80, at 1244.
163 Weston, supra note 75, at 109.