OpenForum – a blog by the Health and Human Rights community

International human rights treaties are drafted with the hope of improving the lives of vulnerable groups, with better health often an explicit goal, but does ratification of these treaties have any effect on health? A study published last week in The Lancet suggests that the answer might be no.

To determine if there is a correlation between ratification of human rights treaties and better health, Alexis Palmer and colleagues used statistical analyses to compare health and social indicators between countries that have ratified six key human rights treaties* and those that have not. In addition, they used the available data to determine if these same indicators improved within countries after ratification. In their analysis, they found no significant association between ratification of these treaties and an improvement in health indicators, a result that is disheartening but perhaps not unexpected by those who work in the global health field. The results for social indicators were no more reassuring; ratification was not significantly associated with improvements in social indicators, even though the treaties more directly target these indicators. The authors stress, however, that international human rights treaties are not without value in the pursuit of better global health. These treaties can be – and have been – used as the basis for legal cases focused on the right to health and can be used by NGOs as the basis for advocating policy changes. Read more