“Human rights law is a powerful legal tool to protect health, including tobacco control and smoking cessation” *
As he continues his advocacy work for tobacco control through a brilliant commentary piece for the Society for the Study of Addiction, Dr. Eduardo Bianco, Director of International Policy Education in Addiction for the Addiction Training for Health Professionals (ATHP) program at the Ulrich and Ruth Frank Foundation for International Health (Frank Foundation), explored the concept of human rights as a powerful legal tool to protect health.
The thought-provoking commentary delved into whether Human Rights are really enforceable and explored an “artificial contrast about differences in enforceability between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR).**” He highlighted the inextricable link between state resources and ESCR, asserting that enforceability is possible due to the interplay between maximum resources, political and technical standards, and the fundamental rule of international law: ‘pacta sunt servanda’, which means that “contracts are to be fulfilled.”
However, this enforceability, he noted, is threatened by the doctrine linked to economic liberalism and, somewhat ironically, is often used by the tobacco industry (e.g. arguing freedom of expression violation) to attack tobacco control policies instead of by tobacco control advocates. Nonetheless, he concludes his commentary by reminding us that although the current relevance of a human rights approach in Latin America may be limited, it is certainly a promising approach that ought to be explored.
If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Bianco’s perspective on the potential of the Human Rights Approach to Tobacco Control in Latin America, the full article can be found at the following link:
Seema Persaud
Author
References
* Bianco, E. A Latin American view of the human rights approach to tobacco control. Addiction. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16057
** Ibid par 2
