Towards a Global Agreement on National and Global Responsibilities for Health

Lawrence O. Gostin^1*, Eric A. Friedman¹, Gorik Ooms²,Thomas Gebauer³, Narendra Gupta⁴, Devi Sridhar⁵, Wang
Chenguang⁶, John-Arne Røttingen⁷, David Sanders⁸

Summary Points

• A coalition of civil society organizations and academics are initiating a Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) to research key conceptual questions involving health rights and responsibilities, with the goal of securing a global health agreement and supporting civil society mobilization around the human right to health.
• This agreement—such as a Framework Convention on Global Health—would inform post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) global health commitments.
• Using broad partnerships and an inclusive consultation process, JALI seeks to clarify the health services to which everyone is entitled under the right to health, the national and global responsibilities for securing this right, and global governance structures that can realize these responsibilities and close major health inequities.
• Mutual benefits to countries in the Global South and North would come from a global health agreement that defines national and global health responsibilities.
• JALI aims to respond to growing demands for accountability, and to create the political space that could make a global health agreement possible./.../