Selected bibliography on human right to health

Abstract

The current economic crisis and the growing disparities between rich and poor countries make that the issue of access health care institutions is becoming one of the most fundamental social issues. The level of access to health care across social groups and regions of the world is still very illustrative example of widening gap between the world of wealth and poverty. Currently even the middle class in highly developed countries begin to suffer more and more problems with the access to several health care institutions and treatments. However, their situation is much better than the excluded and already marginalized categories of people such as illegal migrants and people in developing countries. No wonder then that the human right to health and its implementation has become one of the most important aspects of contemporary social human rights. Just as the concept of human right itself- developed in the academic discourse, the human right to health appears to us as a typically western rights-based construct. Despite the efforts of several universal institutions (such as the WHO and the UN) its understanding and implementation in the developing countries is still far from satisfactory. However, this does not mean that you should give up in our efforts on the development of several pillars of the right to health within the international human rights law. Despite the growing number of publications, the human right to health is still relatively little-known human rights issue. The vast majority of existing publications focuses on theoretical and conceptual issues as well as right to health/access to health care institutions in developed countries. The growing number of studies on human right to health in the U.S. and European states is accompanied by small portion of publications devoted to the problems in underdeveloped countries. This conceptual gap is gradually fill by recently issued publication on realizing to right to health. This bibliography highlights works relating to human right to health that were published over the last 25 years. The entries are divided by type: books; chapters in edited volumes and articles in scientific journals. While not a comprehensive bibliography, the first three sections list approximately 200 references. The main themes of the publications listed in the present report include the following: theoretical approaches to human right to health; right to health care, access to health and bioethics in the context of international human rights law; immigrants and the human right to health care.