The Close Connection Between Classical Rights and the Right to Health, with Special Reference to the Right to Sexual Health and Reproductive Health

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. The article explains that the lack of protection exists because the mechanisms now in place for the supervision and enforcement of this right and other "social human rights" are extremely weak. In these circumstances, the author argues that better protection is available indirectly, through enforcement of certain "classical human rights," such as the right to life, the right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment, and the right to found a family as these rights are in fact dependent on the realization of the "right to health". [Descriptors: Reproductive Rights - Overview, International]