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Interdependence, Human Rights and Global Health Law

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Abstract

The connection between health and human rights continues to play a prominent role within global health law. In particular, a number of theorists rely on the claim that there is a relation of interdependence between health and human rights. The nature and extent of this relation, however, is rarely defined, developed or defended in a conceptually robust way. This paper seeks to explore the source, scope and strength of this putative relation and what role it might play in developing a global health law framework.

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Notes

  1. Sen [14].

  2. Gostin [5, 243ff.]. Gostin has a long association with the health and human rights movement, including being second author on the seminal article outlining and introducing the health and human rights approach in the launch of the eponymously named journal: Mann et al. [9].

  3. Mann et al. [11, 6].

  4. According to Mann et al. [11, 9]: ‘‘… the modern concept of health includes yet goes beyond health care to embrace the broader societal dimensions and context of individual and population well-being’’.

  5. It is also worth noting that one should not conflate the ideas of indivisibility and interdependence. Both the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights are often proclaimed together. For some theorists, such as Shue [15], the interdependence of human rights entails their indivisibility. Nickel [13] claims that indivisibility is a very strong form of interdependence. I shall not say anything here on the idea of indivisibility itself, nor the relation between indivisibility and interdependence. However, since many health and human rights theorists make claims about the indivisibility of human rights in their arguments, there are also implications for their view given how we should understand the idea of indivisibility.

  6. The term interdependence is also used by theorists in the areas of international relations and economics to describe the idea that there is a mutual dependency or responsibility between nations or international institutions, especially in the area of wealth and globalisation. This idea of interdependence is different from the one analysed here.

  7. See for instance, Mann [10, 445], Brundtland [1], Gruskin et al. [8, xiii], Gruskin and Tarantola [7], Iacopino [9].

  8. Mann et al. [12, 1].

  9. It does seem peculiar that, at least in the health and human rights literature I have read, the possibility of the relation of interdependence as one of sufficiency is not considered. On such an understanding, while the promotion of one of the relata could be sufficient for the promotion of the other, it need not always be the case. Moreover, since health and human rights theorists do not seem to take into the account the possibility of interdependence involving a relation of sufficiency, they also do not take into account the even stronger possibility that the relation between human rights and health might be both necessary and sufficient.

  10. See for instance, Gruskin and Tarantola [7]: “… respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights as a necessary prerequisite for the health of individuals and populations’’. Also cf. Gruskin and Tarantola [7] and Mann et al. [12, 12, 13].

  11. For more on the infringement/violation distinction, see Thomson [16, 51] and [17, 122].

  12. See for instance, Gewirth [4]

  13. Gruskin et al. [8, xvi]: ‘‘… respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights… is necessary primarily because they are critical to improving the health status of individuals and populations’’.

  14. Gruskin and Tarantola [7, 5, 28, 39].

  15. For understanding the distinction between the relation of interdependence being bi-directional or bi-conditional as being a matter of the relation being useful versus indispensable, see Nickel [13].

  16. See, for instance, Mann et al. [12, 19ff.]. Moreover, if it is the case that health and human rights theorists understand the relation of interdependence to have the characteristics of being, for example, necessary or correlative, then this would only strengthen the view that we should understand the relation as a bi-conditional.

  17. Similarly, according to the rule of bi-conditional elimination, one can infer a conditional from a bi-conditional: if (A ↔ B) is true, then one may infer one direction of the bi-conditional, (A → B) and (B → A). Thus, if it is true that Human Rights ↔ Health, we will not be able to deny that either direction of the relation: Human Rights → Health or Health → Human Rights.

  18. Here also cf. Cohen [2].

  19. Gruskin and Tarantola [7, 41].

  20. See Nickel [13].

  21. Cf. Easley et al. [3].

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Angus Dawson, who first got me to start thinking more about human rights in the context of public and global health when he invited me to speak at a joint meeting of the International Association of Bioethics’ Public Health Ethics Network (InterPHEN) and the Philosophy and Bioethics Network in Singapore in 2010 that provided the basis for this paper. I would also like to thank Claire Lougarre for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript, and John Coggon for inviting me to participate in the special issue.

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  1. Public Health Ethics and Law Research Group, Centre for Health, Ethics and Law, Southampton Law School, University of Southampton, Building 4, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    A. M. Viens

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Viens, A.M. Interdependence, Human Rights and Global Health Law. Health Care Anal 23, 401–417 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-015-0302-2

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