A critique of human rights based approaches should demonstrate an understanding of human rights based approaches

Abstract

Jia-shin Chen’s recent commentary (Chen, 2011) ‘Beyond human ights and public health: Citizenship issues in harm reduction’ emonstrates little understanding of human rights, undermining ts central critique. The author frames that critique – of human rights and public ealth discourses in harm reduction – on an apparent ‘antagonism’ etween the two, based on a short piece published in the Internaional Journal of Drug Policy seven years ago by Neil Hunt (‘Public ealth or human rights: What comes first?’, Hunt, 2004). According o Chen ‘it is not analytically productive to propose a simple antagnism between human rights and public health as Hunt depicts’. his is true, but the problem is that Hunt’s piece did not really do hat, apart from in the title. The question of ‘what comes first?’ as somewhat misleading. This would have been clear from the ealth of health and human rights literature that is available (see, or example, Mann et al., 1994; volumes 1–13 of Health and Human ights, 1994–2011; and The Lancet special edition on the right o health, 2008), including the considerable amount on HIV/AIDS UNAIDS, 2006; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2003) nd that specific to harm reduction (for a review see Jurgens, Csete, mon, Baral, & Beyer, 2010). But none of this is referenced in Chen’s iece. A speech by Professor Paul Hunt – the former UN Special Raporteur on the Right to Health – delivered at the International Harm eduction Conference in 2008 – is cited (Hunt, 2008), but none of rofessor Hunt’s seminal work on the right to health is referred o, including (with colleagues) on health systems (Backman et al., 008), and, as Special Rapporteur, on rights based indicators United Nations, 2006), both central to the topic at hand. No other rticles or studies on the right to health are cited at all. When Proessor Hunt is referenced, Chen comes closest to understanding uman rights and public health as mutually reinforcing. But then mmediately reverts to the apparent antagonism in Neil Hunt’s title. There are thereafter a number of mischaracterisations of human ights arguments. The human rights/public health dichotomy is one f them. Another is that human rights analysis sticks to ‘ideological ssues instead of practical details’ (the author stating that this is analytically futile’). It is difficult to find any merit in this claim given