Using the Right to Health to Promote Universal Health Coverage

Abstract

Five years ago, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on universal health coverage, followed a year later by a resolution from the United Nations General Assembly. In these resolutions, states promised to deliver affordable health care for everyone, referring to notions of equity and human rights law, particularly a human right to health. However, the explosion of migration coupled with the post-2008 bleak economic climate have led societies worldwide to restrict, or at least challenge, the affordability of access to national health systems for non-nationals. It is in this light that the claims of universality made by universal health coverage should be challenged. This article, therefore, will question the effectiveness of this global health policy in guaranteeing access to affordable health care for non-nationals and will ask whether and how legal avenues such as the right to health should be used to address potential weaknesses.