ID with the SR on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
South Centre Statement (Item 3)
In its 59th session of the Human Rights Council statement on the Right to Health, the South Centre addressed the Special Rapporteur’s report, focusing on the protection of health and care workers. The statement noted the challenges they face, from migration impacts to poor working conditions, and called for their protection to ensure health equity for all.
Advancing Women and Girls’ Health in a Time of Converging Crises
South Centre Briefing Session (April 2025) Report
The South Centre hosted a high-level briefing session aimed at advancing the health rights of women and girls in the face of multiple global challenges. The meeting coincided with the South Centre’s 30th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, bringing together ambassadors, health experts, and representatives of international organisations to discuss the protection and advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the Global South.
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Context of International Human Rights
By Carlos Correa and Daniel Uribe
This policy brief examines the growing recognition of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) within the framework of international human rights law. It traces the evolution of this consensus through key United Nations (UN) General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions, foundational documents like the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the Beijing Platform for Action, and the interpretative work of human rights treaty bodies. These instruments increasingly affirm that SRHR are an integral component of the right to health and are essential for gender equality. However, this brief also highlights the challenges these common efforts face in line with other views, which prioritise national sovereignty in determining policies on reproductive health. The analysis highlights the tension between the evolving international human rights framework and state-centric approaches, concluding with the imperative for ongoing dialogue to solidify and implement SRHR as universal, inalienable human rights.
INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME – STRENGTHENING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH
The South Centre is seeking to fill internship positions to support its activities in the area of strengthening the right to health from a perspective of countries of the Global South.
Specific intern responsibilities include, but are not limited to, supporting the Strengthening the Right to Health project.
Statement of the Executive Director of the South Centre, Dr. Carlos Correa, at the NAM Health Ministers’ Meeting on the sidelines of the 78th World Health Assembly (May 19-27, 2025)
The decisions to be made at the 78th World Health Assembly will have direct implications not only for national health systems, but also for the very architecture of international cooperation in health. Read the statement by the Executive Director of the South Centre, Dr. Carlos Correa, at the NAM Health Ministers’ Meeting on the sidelines of the 78th WHA.
Advancing Women and Girls’ Health in a Time of Converging Crises
Date: 24 April 2025
Time: 14:30 to 16:30 PM
Venue: Maison de la Paix, Petal 2, Room S12, Eugène-Rigot 2, Geneva, Switzerland
The global community faces unprecedented challenges in realising the right to health for all. While progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) acknowledges the importance of gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), this progress is threatened by persistent inequalities, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating climate change impacts, ongoing conflicts, and socio-economic disparities. These converging crises disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, exacerbating marginalisation and hindering progress towards achieving universal health coverage, with particularly severe consequences for women and girls.
This briefing aims to provide a comprehensive overview of these challenges and propose concrete strategies to advance SRHR within international cooperation and the SDGs. The South Centre will host this briefing to foster policy dialogue on how States can fulfil their obligations to advance the right to health for all, with a central focus on SRHR.
STATEMENT BY CARLOS CORREA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTH CENTRE, AT THE VIRTUAL MEETING OF THE MINISTERS OF HEALTH OF THE MEMBER STATES AND OBSERVER STATES OF THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT
25 May 2024
On the sidelines of the 77th session of the World Health Assembly
There is a need for a stronger and more effective WHO, which should be at the centre of norm-setting and moral guidance. NAM can play a key role in shaping the global health agenda. As in the past, the South Centre remains ready to support NAM efforts in this field.
The Right to Health in Pharmaceutical Patent Disputes
by Emmanuel Kolawole Oke
This paper examines how the courts in three developing countries (Kenya, South Africa, and India) have addressed the tension between patent rights on pharmaceutical products and the right to health. The paper begins by examining the nature of the relationship between patent rights and the right to health. It thereafter explores the justiciability of the right to health in Kenya, South Africa, and India. Furthermore, the paper provides an analysis of how the courts in these three developing countries have adjudicated some of the pharmaceutical patent cases involving tensions between the right to health and patent rights. The paper contends that by incorporating the right to health into the adjudication of patent disputes, courts in developing countries can play a crucial role in improving access to medicines at affordable prices.
In October of 2020, when India and South Africa proposed a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement, it was meant to increase local manufacturing capacity in these countries. The waiver was proposed as a tool to kick-start prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19. While there is an imminent need to meet a growing supply-demand gap for all medical products, COVID-19 related products are urgently required in poorer nations to contain the pandemic. The waiver has an additional role to play in the larger trade schema. In enabling vaccination of populations across the globe, the waiver would be critical to normalize global trade. The paper below captures the benefits of the waiver and compares it with the existing flexibilities under the trade regime, being compulsory licensing.
Written Contribution to the United Nations Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Draft General Comment on Land and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
As mentioned by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the purpose of the general comment is to clarify the specific obligations of States parties relating to land and the governance of tenure of land under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In line with such an objective, the South Centre is keen to submit the following written contribution to the draft general comment on Land and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (draft general comment). It will consider some of the concerns that developing countries have raised in relation to their development realities and needs, mainly arising from the challenges they face due to the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis and the need for a fair and inclusive recovery.
Propiedad intelectual y acceso a medicamentos: una introducción a cuestiones clave – algunos términos y conceptos básicos
Por Germán Velásquez
La propiedad intelectual y las patentes en particular se han convertido en uno de los temas más debatidos sobre el acceso a los medicamentos, desde la creación de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) y la entrada en vigor del Acuerdo sobre los Aspectos de los Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual relacionados con el Comercio (ADPIC). Las patentes no son de ninguna manera las únicas barreras para el acceso a medicamentos que salvan vidas, pero pueden desempeñar un papel significativo, o incluso determinante. Durante el período de protección de la patente, la capacidad del titular de la patente para determinar los precios, en ausencia de competencia, puede hacer que el medicamento resulte inalcanzable para la mayoría de las personas que viven en los países en desarrollo. Este primer número de los “Materiales de capacitación del South Centre” pretende, en su primera parte, ofrecer una introducción a cuestiones clave en el ámbito del acceso a los medicamentos y la propiedad intelectual. La segunda parte describe y define algunos términos y conceptos básicos de esta área relativamente nueva de las políticas farmacéuticas, que son los aspectos comerciales de los derechos de propiedad intelectual que regulan la investigación, el desarrollo y el suministro de medicamentos y las tecnologías sanitarias en general.
