The right of access to healthcare : tracing solidarity in the United Nations, Inter-American and European human Rights systems

Abstract

The purpose of this contribution is to trace a solidaristic conceptualisation of the human right of access to healthcare and to contrast it with the minimalistic conceptualisation which is predominant in international human rights law. For the purposes of this work, a solidaristic conceptualisation of this human right is one based on de-commodification, a path that questions the public and private law divide in the context of the provision of healthcare services. This perspective is different from minimalism, an approach according to which this human right should be limited to healthcare treatments necessary for subsistence or survival. The research is carried out within adjudications and country assessments emerged in the context of the UN and the Inter-American and European human rights systems: Concluding Observations of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, together with decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Committee of Social Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. This assessment sheds light on whether any of these bodies take an approach different to the official minimalistic perspective and gets closer to solidarity. If a solidaristic perspective based on de-commodification could lead to maximize the effectiveness and universality of social rights, solidarity could start to be considered as necessary from the point of view of human rights protection.