Abstract
In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but due to its newness at the global stage, how the implementation of the former can be shaped by courts remains unclear. The authors conducted an extensive and systematic review of existing literature on MDGs, SDGs and health litigation cases decided by the Constitutional Court in South Africa. The rationale for this approach is to examine whether the SDGs connect with the right to health and how the court can shape the policy environment for the implementation of SDGs. It was found that the SDGs connect with the right to health and that the Constitutional Court has influenced the MDGs policy environment, hence, can contribute to the implementation of health related SDGs in South Africa. It is concluded that Courts’ role as a platform of accountability, a catalyst of change in the policy environment and agent of social mobilization are important lessons for implementing health related SDGs in South Africa. It is recommended that government and indeed other stakeholders should take into consideration the role of court as they pursue the implementation of health related SDGs in South Africa. Keywords: Health related SDGs, Litigation, Right to Health, Social Mobilisation
Highlights
In 2015, following the activities of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was established under the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the SDGs, a set of 17 goals and 169 targets were adopted via Resolution 70/1 of the UNGA, otherwise referred to as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNDP, 2016; UNGA, 2015)
Unless there is connection of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the right to health, it will be difficult to sustain an argument that accountability through the litigation on the right to health can shape the environment for policy and mobilization campaigns for the implementation of health related SDGs in South Africa
Through a number of its decisions on the right to health, the Constitutional Court has positively impacted the policy environment of health-related MDGs in a way that will be of importance to the policy environment of the health related SDGs
Summary
In 2015, following the activities of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was established under the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the SDGs, a set of 17 goals and 169 targets were adopted via Resolution 70/1 of the UNGA, otherwise referred to as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNDP, 2016; UNGA, 2015). The SDGs aim at building on the experiences of the MDGs, for instance, the preamble of the SDGs announces that it seeks to ‘build on the Millennium Development Goals’ and succeed where MDGs have failed This signifies that the acceptability or otherwise of the link of MDGs to human rights may shape the approach of government and other stakeholders in the implementation of SDGs. due to the newness of the SDGs on the global stage, it is not yet properly developed how accountability through human rights, in particular the litigation of the right to health, can shape policy towards the implementation of the SGDs in South Africa. Of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development, and Goal 15 dealing with degradation and biodiversity loss.
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