2011 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health

17th HRC
12 April 2011

Res­o­lu­tion A/HRC/17/25
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Analysis of precedential value

The spe­cial rap­por­teur on the right of every­one to the enjoy­ment of the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health is a human rights expert man­dated to report and advise on this human right. This man­date was cre­ated by the Com­mis­sion on Human Rights in April 2002 and has been peri­od­i­cally renewed since. This report con­sti­tutes an author­i­ta­tive source of expert prece­dent for the mean­ing and sig­nif­i­cance of key lan­guage. The incum­bent at the time of this report’s release was Anand Grover (India).

To cre­ate this report, Mr. Grover con­tacted 29 Mem­ber States and received input from 19 of them. Its adden­dum states: “the present report con­tains, on a coun­try-by-coun­try basis, sum­maries of com­mu­ni­ca­tions sent by the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur to States, responses received from States, obser­va­tions of the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur, and fol­low-up com­mu­ni­ca­tions and activ­i­ties relat­ing to ear­lier com­mu­ni­ca­tions, from the period of 16 March 2010 to 15 March 2011 and replies received for the period of 2 May 2010 to 1 May 2011.”

Used as precedent

key population and community leadership

The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur rec­om­mends that states take mea­sures to ensure that infor­ma­tion on the right to health frame­work, includ­ing the need for trans­parency, account­abil­ity and par­tic­i­pa­tion of indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties in deci­sion-mak­ing that has a bear­ing on their health, is dis­sem­i­nated and its use pro­moted in devel­op­ment-related areas.

human rights

The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur rec­om­mends that efforts be made to improve tools to mea­sure the impact of human rights-based approaches to devel­op­ment inter­ven­tions with the sup­port of rel­e­vant inter­na­tional bod­ies such as UNDP and OHCHR, tak­ing into account that to achieve real­iza­tion of rights is an end in itself.The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur rec­om­mends that mea­sures be taken to ensure that human rights pri­or­i­ties and goals are not neglected as a con­se­quence of an over­re­liance on eas­ily quan­tifi­able data in the eval­u­a­tion of devel­op­ment inter­ven­tions.