The Multiple Dimensions of the Right to Life
The right to life is the assertion that people have a fundamental right to not be killed. It goes back to such documents as the preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 and Article Three of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948. Within the UDHR’s broad framework, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued in its “General Comment No. 6” of 1982 (hereafter Article Six) some specifications on what it means to protect the right to life. The threats to this right, as the Commissioner states, include “acts of genocide and other acts of mass violence causing arbitrary loss of life,” “deprivation of life by criminal acts,” “arbitrary killing by [the state’s] own security forces,”[1] and others acts that are related to direct killing. The state also has a duty to prevent war. This seems to suggest the right to life is very broad. Yet, the article has many gaps and contradictions in defining the right to life. For example, in terms of contradictions, Article Six makes an exception for war in the name of self-defense, even though such wars cause deaths, too. Moreover, the document calls for a limitation on the death penalty, but not its abolishment. Thus, a document that is meant to protect the right to life is in fact apparently protecting the state’s right to kill. In addition to these contradictions, the document also contains important gaps. Specifically, it does not recognize the extent to which structural forms of violence – such as the lack of access to health care and poverty – can lead to the deprivation of the right to life.
Article Six limits the right to life to the definition that people have the right not to be killed by other humans. If the overall issue is to not end a human being’s life, then the lack of food, water, health care, and even a shortage of income is a violation of the right to life, as well. A recent report by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations considered 2009 as a shocking year for hunger and food security. The report states, “The global economic slowdown, following on the heels of the food crisis in 2006-2008, has deprived an additional 100 million people of access to adequate food.”[2] Today, according to the report, more than one billion people are now likely to be starving. This is a not direct killing by human beings that would be considered a threat to the right to life under Article Six, but it is taking millions of people’s lives. Eliminating the “malnutrition and epidemics,” which the Committee suggests in Article Six, is not enough to protect these people’s lives. What needs to be done, more proactively and more systematically, is to improve the level of food and the medical treatment to promote healthy bodies that can survive.
Millions of people are dying in the world of treatable medical conditions. The Committee declares in Article Six, “It would be desirable for States…to eliminate epidemics,” but “States have the supreme duty to prevent wars” [emphasis mine][3] to protect the right to life. It is more definitive about protecting people from war than from epidemics. In both cases people are dying. The lack of medical treatment presents more of a threat to the right to life than the war itself. In July 2009, The World Bank reported, “Every minute, a woman dies of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth from mostly preventable and treatable medical problems, which adds up to more than 500,000 women each year, according to UNFPA.”[4] Half a million women dying in a year is a violation of human rights, and it is an unquestionable threat to right to life. Just as, as the Committee stated in Article Six, “acts of mass violence causing arbitrary loss of life”[5] must be prevented, so should a failure in the health care system also be prevented.
In many cases in developing countries, people die of diseases because they cannot afford medical treatment. The Disease Control Priorities Project’s report on surgeries in developing countries shows that many people are being denied critical surgical care because of the high cost. Some of the common obstacles in providing surgical care in poor societies are: “poor communications, a lack of transportation, and the high cost that patients must bear for the [health] services.”[6] When a government fails to provide health care for some of its citizens, it is obvious that poor people’s lives are regarded as being less valuable than those of wealthier people.
Extreme low income causes other threats to the right to life, too. Those with a very low income may face food insecurity, which can lead to hunger and starvation. Families lacking income may also be forced to live in poor quality housing and dangerous neighborhoods, in both developing and developed countries. Nearly 1 billion people live in slums today, and these numbers are only expected to rise. Those who spend their lives in these neighborhoods tend to have inadequate water supplies and access to sanitation.[7] As the world saw in Haiti, poor infrastructure, as happens in slums, can lead to massive loss of life. In these neighborhoods, the level of crime is also high. Their residents’ right to life is severely compromised. If the overall goal of Article Six is to protect the right to life, then it should declare that the state has a responsibility to provide security and housing for those with an extreme low income.
A direct act of violence by a person against another person is not the only threat to the right to life. Any direct or indirect act that can take the life of people constitutes such a threat to the right of life. It does not have to be genocide, or mass violence. It could be failing to provide life’s necessities, like food, medical treatment, and income, which all sustain the lives of human beings.
Works Cited
Disease Control Priorities Project. “Promoting Essential Surgery in Low-Income Countries.” June 2008. http://www.dcp2.org/file/158/dcpp-surgery.pdf.
Lee Riley, Albert Ko, Alon Unger, and Mitermayer Reis. “Slum Health: Diseases of Neglected Populations.” BMC International Health and Human Rights. March 2007. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829399/.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Economic Crises-Impacts and Lessons Learned.” 2009. http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/.
The World Bank. “World’s Progress on Maternal Heath and Family Planning is Insufficient.” July, 2009. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,print:Y~isCURL:Y~content MDK:22241448~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html.
United Nation. General Comment No. 06: The right to life (art. 6). 30/04/1982. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/84ab9690ccd81fc7c12563ed0046fae3.
[1] United Nation. General Comment No. 06: The right to life (art. 6). 30/04/1982. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/84ab9690ccd81fc7c12563ed0046fae3.
[2] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Economic Crises-Impacts and Lessons Learned.” 2009. http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/.
[3] United Nation. General Comment No. 06: The right to life (art. 6). 30/04/1982. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/84ab9690ccd81fc7c12563ed0046fae3.
[4] The World Bank. “World’s Progress on Maternal Heath and Family Planning is Insufficient.” July, 2009. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,print:Y~isCURL:Y~contentMDK:22241448~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html.
[5] United Nation. General Comment No. 06: The right to life (art. 6). 30/04/1982. http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/84ab9690ccd81fc7c12563ed0046fae3.
[6] Disease Control Priorities Project. “Promoting Essential Surgery in Low-Income Countries.” June 2008. http://www.dcp2.org/file/158/dcpp-surgery.pdf.
[7] Lee Riley, Albert Ko, Alon Unger, and Mitermayer Reis. “Slum Health: Diseases of Neglected Populations.” BMC International Health and Human Rights. March 2007. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829399/
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