Hendriks, Aart

Although several international and regional human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), explicitly recognize a broad right to health, this article points out that these standards offers little real protection to interests in individual and community health, including reproductive and sexual health.

This article notes that health and human rights impacts of both sexuality and reproductive health are now widely known. It analyzes the role states can and should play in ensuring the realization of women's sexual and reproductive health as part of their responsibility toward the promotion and protection of women's health. In particular, the author discusses how provisions in both the Economic Covenant and the Women's Convention - the potential of which has long been underestimated in this area - could be used to eliminate the causes of gender-related violations of the right to health.

The author Aart Hendriks discusses the 9th session of the UN Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to health. This session looked at the conflicting views on health: protection of public health versus protection of individual health. The committee reiterated their stance that the denial of individual rights affects society as a whole. The committee stated that state responsibilities included refraining from acts injurious to individuals or society, protection of the environment, and promotion of healthy and safe conditions.