From Principle to Practice: Moving from Human Rights to Legal Rights to Ensure Child Health

ABSTRACT:

This medical–legal model is taking hold in resource-poor settings or resource-poor countries, including support from a new initiative through the Soros-funded Open Society Institute. Its benefits should have ripple effects well beyond the health and well-being of individual families and children. Firstly, collaboration among lawyers and healthcare providers constituency for related efforts ranging from human rights campaigns to legislative advocacy. Secondly, identifying and dealing with violations of laws that emanate from a human rights framework will add teeth to those laws and that framework. This in turn will ultimately promote a wider embracing of the rule of law as a universal standard.