State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

Health: a social and economic right
The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, ICCPR and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, ICESCR, were developed during the
1960s to ensure the principles referenced in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights would
be implemented. Human rights activists have
ensured that the ICCPR has played a key part
in protecting people against government abuses
of political power while today the ICESCR is
instrumental in activist efforts to persuade governments
to place the right to a house or a meal
on an equal footing with the right to vote (The
Economist, 2001). Activists in and committed
to some of the world’s poorest countries have
demanded that economic and social goods be
treated as entitlements in places where access to
food and shelter is so lacking as to make even
civil and political rights seem like luxuries.
Since 1998, the World Health Organization
has been asking the international community to
formally respect and uphold health as a human
right. The challenge has been to define what
these social and economic rights—including the
right to health—mean in specific and concrete
terms that facilitate advocacy and implementation.
In 2000, the United Nations Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
defined governments’ “core obligations” to
include providing equal access to health services,
sufficient food, potable water, sanitation and
essential drugs.
Accountability for rights
No right exists without obligation, and no obligation
is meaningful without accountability.
United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies are
charged with tracking government compliance
with major human rights treaties and now routinely
recommend that governments take action
to protect sexual and reproductive health and
reproductive rights (Center for Reproductive
Rights, 2009). Under the auspices of the
Human Rights Council of the United Nations,
the Universal Periodic Review involves a Statedriven
review of the human rights records of all
United Nations Member States once every four
years. Each State is given the opportunity to
declare the actions they have taken to improve
the human rights situations in their countries
and to fulfil their human rights obligations.
The Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women reviews evidence
on the protection of human rights
around the world and issues recommendations.
In 2011, for example, the Committee issued
strong recommendations to the Governments
of Nepal, Zambia and Costa Rica to ensure
the sexual and reproductive rights of their
citizens (Center for Reproductive Rights,
2011a). The independent Expert Review
Group was created in 2011 by the United
Nations Secretary-General to track the Global
Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health
and the Commission on Information and
Accountability (World Health Organization,
2010a). With a special focus on ensuring the
commitment of resources to fulfil Millennium
Development Goals 4 (to reduce child death
rates) and 5 (to reduce maternal death rates),
the independent Expert Review Group will
last four years, delivering its first report to
the United Nations General Assembly in
September 2012.
National human rights institutions and courts
of justice are directly responsible for ensuring
the realization of reproductive rights. The Kenya
National Commission on Human Rights, for
example, recently conducted an inquiry into a
range of reproductive rights abuses in that country
(Kenya National Commission on Human
6 CHAPTER 1: THE RIGHT TO FAMILY PLANNING