Promoting the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health Through Enhancing Capacity-Building in Public Health

A/HRC/RES/32/16No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2016.

What subjects does this mandate have?

11 topics

Capacity Building Conferences Development Assistance Disease Control Health Care Delivery Health Personnel International Cooperation Pharmaceuticals Public Health Right to Health Technical Cooperation

What does this mandate say?

11 operative paragraphs

Urges Member States and the international community to increase investment, building on existing mechanisms and through partnership, to improve health systems in developing countries and countries with economies in transition with the aim of providing sufficient health workers, infrastructures, management systems and supplies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030;

Calls upon Member States to take the primary responsibility for strengthening their capacity-building in public health to detect and respond rapidly to outbreaks of major infectious diseases through the establishment and improvement of effective public health mechanisms, including full implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005), and strategies for training, recruitment and retention of sufficient public health personnel, and systems of prevention and of immunization against infectious diseases;

Encourages States to promote access to medicines for all, including through the use, to the full, of the provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights which provide flexibility for that purpose, recognizing that the protection of intellectual property is important for the development of new medicines, as well as the concerns about its effects on prices;

Welcomes in this regard South-South, North-South and triangular cooperation, and recognizes the commitment to explore opportunities for further South-South cooperation as a complement, not a substitute, to North-South cooperation;

Recognizes the fundamental relevant importance of the transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed;

Stresses the importance of enhancing international cooperation in the area of public health in the aftermath of natural disasters to support national efforts to cope in all phases of the response, and urges Member States and the international community to strengthen their cooperation programmes, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery in this regard;

Acknowledges the contribution of aid targeted towards the health sector, while recognizing that much more needs to be done, and calls upon States to fulfil their respective official development assistance commitments, including the commitments by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance, and urges those developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts in this regard in accordance with their commitments;

Invites Member States to foster public health systems that ensure the realization of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including of those in vulnerable situations;

Encourages United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, in particular the World Health Organization as the lead United Nations agency on health, in accordance with their respective mandates and as appropriate, to continue to address public health concerns in their activities and programmes, and to actively support capacity-building in global public health, such as through the provision of technical and other relevant assistance to developing countries, including the least developed countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries;

Encourages the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, especially the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, within their existing mandates, to continue to address public health concerns in their activities and programmes, and where feasible to support capacity-building in global public health, such as through the provision of technical and other relevant assistance to developing countries;

Decides to convene, at its thirty-fifth session, a panel discussion with the participation of States, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, academics and experts and non-governmental organizations, with the objective of exchanging experiences and practices on realizing the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health by enhancing capacity-building in public health, and that the discussion shall be fully accessible to persons with disabilities, and requests the High Commissioner to prepare a summary report on the panel discussion and to submit it to the Human Rights Council at its thirty-sixth session.

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Who created this mandate?

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