Health as Freedom: Addressing Social Determinants of Global Health Inequities Through the Human Right to Development

Bioethics, Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 112, 2009

11 Pages Posted: 26 Dec 2011

See all articles by Benjamin Mason Meier

Benjamin Mason Meier

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ashley M. Fox

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: 2009

Abstract

In spite of vast global improvements in living standards, health, and wellbeing, the persistence of absolute poverty and its attendant maladies remains an unsettling fact of life for billions around the world and constitutes the primary cause for the failure of developing states to improve the health of their peoples. While economic development in developing countries is necessary to provide for underlying determinants of health – most prominently, poverty reduction and the building of comprehensive primary health systems – inequalities in power within the international economic order and the spread of neoliberal development policy limit the ability of developing states to develop economically and realize public goods for health. With neoliberal development policies impacting entire societies, the collective right to development, as compared with an individual rights-based approach to development, offers a framework by which to restructure this system to realize social determinants of health. The right to development, working through a vector of rights, can address social determinants of health, obligating states and the international community to support public health systems while reducing inequities in health through poverty-reducing economic growth. At an international level, where the ability of states to develop economically and to realize public goods through public health systems is constrained by international financial institutions, the implementation of the right to development enables a restructuring of international institutions and foreign-aid programs, allowing states to enter development debates with a right to cooperation from other states, not simply a cry for charity.

Keywords: human rights, right to development, social determinants of health, right to health, neoliberal development policy, globalization

Suggested Citation

Meier, Benjamin Mason and Fox, Ashley M., Health as Freedom: Addressing Social Determinants of Global Health Inequities Through the Human Right to Development (2009). Bioethics, Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 112, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1977081

Benjamin Mason Meier (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://https://www.benjaminmasonmeier.com/

Ashley M. Fox

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

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