Articles
Access to medicines and the right to health and life: South Centre View
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Below is a statement presented by Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, during the 2015 Social Forum of the United Nations Human Rights Council which took place from 18 to 20 February 2015 in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.
The 2015 Social Forum was held in accordance with paragraph 6 of Human Rights Council resolution 26/28 entitled “The Social Forum”. It focused on "access to medicines in the context of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including best practices in this regard ".
Access to medicines, even if a person is too poor to afford it, is a cornerstone to the realization of the right to health and life. There has been significant progress in new and better medicines. However prices of the medicines are often priced so high so as to be out of reach of the poor or even the middle classes in many countries, not only in developing but also in developed countries.
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Post-2015: Measuring the (real) scope of ambition
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The post-2015 development agenda aspires to global transformation. Its content so far, including the set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) agreed in last year’s Open Working Group, affirms that aim through an unprecedented commitment to inclusion, sustainability and universality. This suggests that the world might finally move beyond current imbalanced patterns of consumption and production that have left wide swathes of human deprivation and pushed the limits of planetary boundaries.
Yet the main question, after the most recent intergovernmental negotiations on the agenda in March in New York, is: will the political process live up to the agenda’s promise? It is still early days in forging global consensus, but given the stakes at hand, momentum is critical. Will governments and all other actors exercise the kind of visionary leadership and risk-taking that transformation demands? Or will they fall back on protecting familiar vested interests and avoid risk by seeking easier, quicker agreement? Does the calculation of political risk overwhelm the very urgent imperative to take serious action on urgent issues—namely, the long-term survival of people and the planet?
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Land Seizures Speed Up, Leaving Africans Homeless and Landless
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There is a new scramble for Africa, with ordinary people facing displacement by the affluent and the powerful as huge tracts of land on the continent are grabbed by a minority, rights activists here say.
“Our forefathers cried foul during colonialism when their land was grabbed by colonialists more than a century ago, but today history repeats itself, with our own political leaders and wealthy countrymen looting land,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), a democracy lobby group in Zimbabwe, told IPS.
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Is the IMF Heading for a Governance Crisis?
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It appears that IMF governance reform is heading towards a near certain crisis. 2015 should mark the completion of the Fifteenth review of IMF quotas, which affect the voting share of IMF members. However, the Fourteenth Review has not yet been ratified, as the US Congress has blocked it – the US’s 16.85% voting share gives it a de facto veto on any decisions requiring an 85% majority of votes. It seems highly unlikely that anything will change to alter this scenario, and 2015 will end with the Fourteenth review unratified.
Can a new quota reform with any credibility really be agreed in this environment? We should also remember that quota reforms have traditionally been highly political affairs with states taking positions on the basis of how changes will affect their voting shares. Even if a reform is agreed, is there any likelihood that it will be ratified?
Tax Justice to end Inequality
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Declaration published at the World Social forum in Tunis:
The declaration calls for binding tax and transparency rules that ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes, and contends that global decision-making on tax should be taken out of the hands of the exclusive OECD and handed to a UN body that ensures developing countries have an equal seat at the table. It also calls for tax laws to incorporate the rights of women and redress the gender imbalances that run through many tax systems.
