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A Progressively Realizable Right to Health and Global Governance

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Abstract

A moral right to health or health care is a special instance of a right to fair equality of opportunity. Nation-states generally have the capabilities to specify the entitlements of such a right and to raise the resources needed to satisfy those entitlements. Can these functions be replicated globally, as a global right to health or health care requires? The suggestion that “better global governance” is needed if such a global right is to be claimed requires that these two central capabilities be present. It is unlikely that nation-states would concede these two functions to a form of global governance, for doing so would seriously compromise the authority that is generally included in sovereignty. This claim is a specification of what is often recognized as the “sovereignty problem.” The argument of this paper is not an “impossibility” claim, but a best guess about whether the necessary conditions for better global governance that supports a global right to health or health care can be achieved.

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Correspondence to Norman Daniels.

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Daniels, N. A Progressively Realizable Right to Health and Global Governance. Health Care Anal 23, 330–340 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-015-0298-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-015-0298-7

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