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The Right to Health through Litigation: Can Court Enforced Health Rights Improve Health Policy?


Cases regarding the right to health care are increasingly brought before courts. In a number of low- and middle-income countries – first in Latin America, later also in Africa and Asia, court decisions have granted access to medical treatment. These are decisions with potentially great implications for how health sector resources are prioritized and allocated, but so far there is little systematic knowledge of the actual effect of such cases on health policy formation and spending.

Funding: NRC, Norwegian Research Council
Coordinator: Siri Gloppen, Christian Michelsens Institute
Duration:  2008-2011

Focus areas

The project investigates whether litigation can make health policies and -systems in poor countries more equitable by forcing policy-makers and administrators to take seriously their human rights obligations. The project addresses three sets of questions:

  • How does litigation on health rights affect health policy and -spending in low- and middle-income countries? Does it lead to more or less fairness in treatment of various groups of patients?
  • What drives the “litigation wave”? How does international human rights norms enter into domestic litigation in these cases?
  • How do courts negotiate this technically complex and often politically sensitive terrain?

Publication

Judicial protection of the right to health in Colombia:  From social demands to individual claims to public debates
Yamin, Alicia Ely and Oscar Parra-Vera (2010)
in Hastings International and Comparative Law Review vol. 33 no. 2 pp. 101-129

Litigation as a Strategy to hold Governments Accountable for Implementing the Right to Health
Gloppen, Siri (2008)
in Health and Human Rights vol. 10 no. 2 pp.21-36

Last updated 21.3.2012