The Development and Implementation of Human Rights Law in World Health Organization Governance

Abstract

Chronicling the evolution of human rights in WHO governance since its establishment, this chapter examines WHO’s contributions to human rights in global health. Part I presents the post-war legal debates that gave rise to both international health governance and human rights law, creating WHO’s expansive public health mandate as a basis to realize a human right to health. Upon this foundation for health and human rights, Part II addresses the evolution of WHO’s efforts to develop, implement, and operationalize human rights in public health. Recognizing how WHO’s past provides a basis to situate its future in global health governance, Part III analyzes how these past struggles have continued to shape WHO’s challenges to mainstreaming human rights in the WHO Secretariat. Part IV examines current efforts to mainstream human rights alongside gender and equity, complementing WHO’s program-specific rights-based initiatives. These contemporary efforts have sought to revitalize WHO’s human rights leadership, and Part V analyzes how the right to health has proven a political catalyst to motivate support for universal health coverage. As the world faces a new pandemic threat, Part VI considers how WHO leadership has looked to human rights to galvanize global solidarity in the unprecedented COVID-19 response. Despite internal and external challenges to mainstreaming, this chapter concludes that WHO remains central to advancing human rights through global health governance, yet this future remains uncertain as populist nationalism challenges public health, human rights, and global institutions.