COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION MEETS WITH SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON RIGHT TO HEALTH

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today met with the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Paul Hunt, to exchange views on the ways in which they could enhance their work when addressing this basic right.

While indicating that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had assisted him greatly in carrying out his mandate, the Special Rapporteur said his mandate required him to address racial discrimination in relation to health. Both the Committee’s country recommendations and general comments had been particularly useful to him, especially when making country visits.

Mr. Hunt indicated that his mandate was established three years ago and that he had been in office for just over two years. In brief, his mandate was to help States and other actors to better promote and protect the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in line with the Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. The Rapporteur said the three general objectives to his work were to raise the profile of the right to health as a basic human right; to clarify what the right to health meant in terms of legal obligations of States parties; and to find ways to assist States parties and other actors to operationalize the right to health in practice. As a means of making the right to health manageable, the Special Rapporteur said he had been focusing on the right to health for those living in poverty and on stigma and discrimination on the grounds of race and ethnicity.

Mr. Hunt said he had been submitting annual reports both to the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights which addressed, among other things, the issues of mental disability; sexual and reproductive health rights; indigenous people and the right to health; the health-related Millennium Development Goals; as well as the issue of health indicators and benchmarks. Moreover, he said he had visited several countries in his capacity as Special Rapporteur; those included Mozambique, Peru, and Romania, where race played a major theme in terms of access to adequate health care. Mr. Hunt added that he also undertook a mission to the World Trade Organization and in that connection published a report on the impact of access to essential drugs and health services.

While underling that the right to health was no less important than any of the other basic human rights, Mr. Hunt called on the Committee to assist him with his mandate to help raise the profile of the right to health and by way of assisting States and actors to operationalize the right to health. He also offered to make sample draft questions available to Committee Experts on the right to health to help them conduct their work.

Committee Experts raised a series of questions and addressed comments to the Special Rapporteur on issues including the problem of HIV/AIDS and the availability of health care in developing countries; the ethics of doctors; the issue of housing in relation to sanitation and public health; malnutrition and infant mortality; and health care standards for detainees and the prison population.

For use of the information media; not an official record

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