Mediating tensions between public health and individual rights

Abstract

Abstract Public health laws and policies are powerful tools. Yet, they are often at tension with individual rights, including physical integrity, and privacy and family life. For example: extensive quarantines to curb the spread of an infectious disease may restrict freedom of movement; the introduction of compulsory vaccination for pre-school entry may create tension with the freedom of conscience or religion of parents who do not wish to have their children vaccinated; and smoke-free zones can create tension with the rights to privacy and family life. Overcoming such tensions is both an ethical and a legal imperative. The primary legal framework in which this settling of tensions takes place is human rights law, which is binding on all countries around the world. Human rights standards reflect individual values that need to be taken into account when introducing public health measures. However, there is still insufficient understanding as to how the various human rights are to be weighed and integrated into public health laws and policies. Many questions remain, including how to balance public health or the collective ‘right to health' with individual rights. This presentation will identify the most important tensions between public health measures and individual human rights. Subsequently, it will offer some solutions on how to better integrate human rights into public health laws and policies. Specific attention will be paid to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The point will be made, that the ‘best interest of the child' norm under this Convention may under circumstances set aside other interests, including parental freedoms. The presentation will conclude with the identification of a so-called ‘Human Rights-Based Approach' (HRBA), an integrated approach that may serve to make public health laws and policies ‘human rights proof'. Key messages There is an inherent tension between measures to protect the health of the public and individual human rights. We need to come to a better understanding of how to resolve these tensions.