The United Nations Special Procedures: Peopling Human Rights, Peopling Global Health

Abstract

This chapter examines the UN Special Procedures, a system of independent experts appointed to monitor and report on human rights violations and to advise and assist in promoting and protecting rights. It positions the Special Procedures as a “missing population,” neglected not just by proponents of global health but by human rights advocates too. The chapter sets out to counter this neglect by “peopling” human rights law. It does this by adding the Special Rapporteurs and others who make up the system of Special Procedures, positioning these experts as an essential supplement to the cast of characters — courts, treaty bodies, non-governmental organizations, victims, and states — that dominate accounts of human rights law. Adding Special Procedures would help in particular to address the widespread failure to see human rights law as a deliberative and iterative process that draws in a range of actors.

Keywords: UN Special Procedures, UN Special Rapporteurs, right to health, health, underlying determinants of health, human rights–based approach (HRBA), global health