ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH

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The Right to Health: UNESCO and Social Responsibility, and the Sharing of Benefits

At the 2005 General Conference, the Member States of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.

Article 14 of the Declaration, dealing with Social Responsibility and Health, declares that:

  • the promotion of health and social development for their people is a central purpose of governments that all sectors of society share;
  • the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being; and
  • progress in science and technology should advance:

  1. access to quality health care and essential medicines, especially for the health of women and children, because health is essential to life itself and must be considered to be a social and human good;
  2. access to adequate nutrition and water;
  3. improvement of living conditions and the environment;
  4. elimination of the marginalization and the exclusion of persons on the basis of any grounds; and
  5. reduction of poverty and illiteracy.


Article 15 of the Declaration, which discusses the sharing of benefits, declares that:

  • benefits resulting from any scientific research and its applications should be shared with society as a whole and within the international community, in particular with developing countries; and
  • benefits may take any of the following forms:

  1. special and sustainable assistance to, and acknowledgement of, the persons and groups that have taken part in the research;
  2. access to quality health care;
  3. provision of new diagnostic and therapeutic modalities or products stemming from research;
  4. support for health services;
  5. access to scientific and technological knowledge;
  6. capacity-building facilities for research purposes; and
  7. other forms of benefits consistent with the principles set out in the Declaration.

In July 2007, the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee (IBC) considered the Preliminary Draft Report on Social Responsibility and Health as drafted by the IBC Working Group on Social Responsibility and Health.

In October 2008, a revised Draft Report on Social Responsibility and Health was published and presented at the Fifteenth Session of the IBC. The report outlines the “ethical and legal dimensions of social responsibility and health,” stressing that entities such as corporations, civil society organizations, and even individuals should be held responsible for working to improve certain “social determinants” of health, including living conditions, education, and access to health care (including medicines).

A final version of this report will be considered at the Sixteenth Session of the IBC, currently scheduled for November 2009. Following its final approval, the report will be transmitted to the Director-General of UNESCO.


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