Nailing health planks into the foreign policy platform: the Canadian experience

Foreign policy, especially trade policy, can have dramatic but rarely considered effects on public health. International human rights covenants oblige governments to scrutinise their foreign policy, including trade policy, for its impact on the progressive realisation of the right to health. Health is both a means and an end of development policy, but government investments in health are inadequate to reduce health disparities within and between nations. Few donor countries provide the agreed target of 0.7% of gross national income for development aid or toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals. The progressive liberalisation requirement of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), if applied to commitments in health care, education, and water and sanitation services, may conflict with the progressive realisation obligation of the right to health. Alternatives to regulating trade in such essential services are proposed in this article.