International Bioethics Committee Seeks to Make Civil Society Responsible for Health
CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP, ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIETY & CULTURE
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
In 2005, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (the “Declaration”). Last fall UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee (IBC) released its “Draft Report on Social Responsibility and Health” (the “Draft Report”), which confirms concerns on the part of some that the Declaration would be used to advance the global governance of health by the United Nations, other international organizations, and NGOs.
Article 14 of the Declaration states that “the promotion of health and social development for their people is a central purpose of governments that all sectors of society share.” Through a series of three reports, the IBC Working Group on social responsibility and health is seeking to expand beyond their intentionally limited nature the statements contained in Article 14 about the importance of such goals as improving access to quality health care and medicines; access to adequate nutrition and water; and improvement of living conditions and the environment.
In contrast with the introductory nature of the IBC’s 2007 Preliminary Draft Report of the IBC Working Group on Social Responsibility and Health, the Draft Report outlines the “ethical and legal dimensions of social responsibility and health.” While both reports emphasize that health should be the responsibility of all members of society, the Draft Report stresses that entities such as corporations, civil society organizations, and even individuals should be held responsible for working to improve certain “social determinants” of health, such as living conditions, education, or access to health.
By interpreting Article 14 of the Declaration in a manner that makes corporations and individuals responsible for promoting the “right to health,” the Draft Report facilitates the work of those international organizations and non-governmental organizations that are interested in establishing international norms, the “violation” of which corporations and individuals could be held accountable. According to the Draft Report, public and private “institutions and corporations do not only have a legal personality, but also a moral one, and they should assume duties which are exclusively moral, without any kind of legal requirement.” The Draft Report further provides that one of the aims of the Declaration is to “sharpen the moral conscience of people, social institutions and States.”
Finally, in seeking to establish ethical norms that can serve as the basis for holding individuals and corporations responsible for implementing the right to health in their own countries, the Draft Report attempts to create an obligation on their part to do so internationally. The Draft Report maintains that “high income, industrialized countries have a special responsibility with regard to the promotion of benefit sharing, solidarity and international cooperation in the field of science and technology, by assisting developing countries in building up their capacity.” Specifically, the Draft Report mentions that developed countries need to prioritize their health research so that the medical needs of low-and middle-income countries are met; pharmaceutical companies need to relax their drug pricing schemes in order to make medicines available to developing countries; intellectual property rights laws must be eased so as not to disadvantage developing countries; and the cost of medical care needs to be reduced so that it is attainable by everyone.
The Draft Report will be submitted to the IBC for approval at its sixteenth session in May 2009 in the form of a Final Report. Regarding Article 14 of the Declaration, it is possible that the Final Report will recommend an Action Plan on social responsibility and health for adoption by the IBC, and ultimately, the UNESCO member states.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
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