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Hunt, Paul; Walker, Simon --- "WTO Member States and the Right to Health" [2006] ELECD 74; in Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew (eds), "Human Rights and Capitalism" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Human Rights and Capitalism

Editor(s): Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422684

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: WTO Member States and the Right to Health

Author(s): Hunt, Paul; Walker, Simon

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

9. WTO member states and the right to
health
Paul Hunt and Simon Walker*

This chapter focuses on a selection of WTO Agreements and trade issues that
bear closely upon the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health (`the right to health').1 For
two reasons, its primary focus is on the position of states in relation to
selected trade issues and the right to health, rather than the responsibilities
under international human rights law of the WTO and its secretariat. First, the
WTO is principally driven by its member states and, second, international
human rights law primarily places obligations on states. Thus, given the
central role of states under both international human rights law and trade law,
it is more fruitful to focus on the relationship between states, the right to
health and trade.2
As a point of departure, it is important to identify the normative and
practical bases for analysing this relationship. At the normative level, all
member states of the United Nations ­ which includes all members of the
WTO ­ have ratified at least one human rights treaty. Most WTO members
have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights and all but one have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
both of which recognize the right to health. Thus, there is a normative basis
for considering the promotion and protection of human rights within the
context of the negotiation and implementation of ...