Humanity and Justice in Global Health: Problems with Venkatapuram's Justification of the Global Health Duty

One of the most ambitious and sophisticated recent approaches to provide a theory of global health justice is Sridhar Venkatapuram's recent work. In this commentary, we first outline the core idea of Venkatapuram's approach to global health justice. We then argue that one of the most important elements of the account, Venkatapuram's basis of global health duties, is either too weak or assumed implicitly without a robust justification. The more explicit grounding of the duty to protect and promote health capabilities is based on Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability approach. We argue that this foundation gives rise to humanitarian duties rather than duties of justice proper. Venkatapuram's second argument from the social determinants of health thesis is instead a stronger candidate for grounding duties of justice. However, as a justificatory argument, it is only alluded to and has not yet been spelled out sufficiently. We offer plausible justificatory steps to fill this gap and draw some implications for global health action. We believe this both strengthens Venkatapuram's approach and serves to broaden the basis for future action in the area of global health.