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3The Right to Health and the Free TradeAgreement with The United StatesGerardo MerinoHealth was recognized as a basic human right in the Universal Declarationof Human Rights of 1948, whose 25th article declares: "Every personhas the right to enjoy an adequate living standard, which ensures this person,as well as her/his family, health and well-being, and especially nourishment,dwelling, medical care, and the necessary social services".Before that year, legal references to the right to health were scarce andimprecise. Health was considered to belong to the private field, not the public.It was defined merely as the "absence of illness". This definition wasbroadened afterward. Thus, among other instruments, the International Pactof Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), and the Protocol of San Salvador(1988) define it as: "the enjoyment of the highest level of physical, mentaland social well-being". In this explanation emerges the criterion thathealth is a human right and a public good, and owing to this it is a responsibilityof states to do whatever necessary to guarantee its fulfillment.30