Trends in health legislation and human rights

For the past three or four decades many countries have ranked health as one of their social priorities and have embarked on comprehensive programmes to ensure universal access to health care. In the same period, mostly under the influence of the international community, the protection and promotion of human rights have become an integral part of modern legal theories and, in many countries or regions, these rights have been framed as constitutional norms or as rules paramount to local legislation. Trends observed in recent legislation may lead to infringements of human rights. At the core of these trends are measures, derived from express legislative sources or implemented by having recourse to the use of delegated powers, concerning the allocation of resources and the duty to render assistance. These measures often impact on the rights of an individual and are thus questionable under human rights theories. This article assesses the consequences of these legislative trends and questions the implicit proposal that the balance between individual rights and collective interests should be weighed in favour of the latter.