Human Rights-based Approaches and the Right to Health: A Systematic Literature Review

The term ‘human rights-based approach’ is common in rights and international development literature. Yet there is no single, universally agreed definition of a human rights-based approach, let alone its application to the right to health. This article uses a PRISMA-informed systematic literature review to address the question, ‘What is the current status of the human rights-based approach to health in international law?’ Previous reviews have described how international organizations and development donors have tackled human rights-based approaches to development generally and discussed prominent works on human rights-based approaches to health. However, this is the first review to sample the peer-reviewed literature systematically. The study revealed that authors use the terms ‘human rights’, ‘human rights-based approach’ and ‘right to health’ to import a raft of legal implications, or none at all. Similarly, readers may assign legal meanings to these terms, or none at all. Confusion arises because although these terms often have different meanings for authors and readers from different disciplines, this is not commonly acknowledged, and authors rarely clarify their perspectives. The author concludes that scholars should seek co-authors with human rights law or public health qualifications, as relevant. Most academic institutions research and teach health and law separately; interdisciplinary centres of excellence in health, law and human rights offer an opportunity to overcome these historical obstacles to interdisciplinary dialogue and understanding. The study and its conclusions will be of interest to legal researchers, human rights advocates, public health scholars, and advocates from other disciplines.