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Erika George
Two recent publications present a defence of the right to health as it is articulated in international law and also provide insights into the array of impediments to realizing the health right. Despite a perceived conceptual lack of coherence and a limited appreciation of its relevance among health care professionals identified in these two books, the right to health has nevertheless succeeded in capturing greater attention in global policy circles. Local health care system reform initiatives around the globe increasingly make reference to the right to health. Both books are particularly helpful additions to the literature in light of recent advances in the development of the health right. Yet, each offers a very different assessment of its present status and prognosis for its future development.
John Harrington and Maria Stuttaford's edited volume brings together a variety of internationally renowned scholars of law, philosophy, and health policy to offer an interdisciplinary exploration of the "development of rights-based approaches to health" (at i). John Tobin's book also draws from a range of different disciplines and offers a truly outstanding and comprehensive examination of the health right. From the history of its inclusion in the corpus of international law, to its conceptual foundations and substantive content, to measures required to secure it, Tobin's text on the right to health could well be the most helpful to date. It provides an accessible overview to readers interested in understanding obligations arising from the right to health under international law and impediments to implementation.
A central organizing claim of the Harrington and Stuttaford volume is that the right to health, previously relegated to a secondary status in the hierarchy of human rights, now enjoys an elevated status as policy makers and health practioners increasingly realize that approaching problems in health care delivery systems and public �
