Global Obligations to Ensure the Right to Health: Strengthening Global Health Governance to Realise Human Rights in Global Health

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is reframing human rights in global health governance. International organisations have long sought to bring nations together in responding to global health threats; however, the United Nations (UN) system has faced limited compliance with its governance frameworks amidst increasing nationalism. In the pandemic response, the World Health Organization (WHO) is confronting isolationist obstacles to global solidarity, undermining efforts to advance human rights in global health. These structural impediments in a challenged global health governance landscape have raised an imperative to clarify extraterritorial human rights obligations, including global obligations of states and international organisations. In strengthening global health governance to realise human rights in global health, this article examines the changing landscape of extraterritorial human rights obligations in global health through strengthened WHO leadership and coordination across the larger system of international organisations, re-centring global human rights obligations in global health governance. These global obligations provide a path to overcome nationalist challenges in the pandemic response, strengthening institutions of global governance to advance global health, global equity, and global solidarity.