A/HRC/38/37 I. Introduction 1. The present report has been prepared pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 35/23, in which the Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report that presents contributions of the right to health framework to the effective implementation and achievement of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, identifying best practices, challenges and obstacles thereto, and to submit it to the Council at its thirty-eighth session. 2. In preparing the report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) consulted and took into account the views of a range of stakeholders, as the Council encouraged it to do. A total of 49 contributions were received from Member States, United Nations bodies, human rights treaty bodies, special procedure mandate holders, national human rights institutions, academia and civil society organizations. All submissions are available on the OHCHR website. 1 II. The right to health in international human rights law 3. The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a fundamental right that is indivisible from, and interdependent and interrelated with, all other human rights. It is recognized in human rights instruments adopted at both the global and the regional levels, including in article 25 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The right to health is also enshrined in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.2 4. This section highlights key aspects of the normative right to health framework that has been prepared by international human rights mechanisms. The general comments of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other treaty bodies provide authoritative guidance on the normative content of the right and on the scope of State obligations, including priority interventions towards the progressive realization of the right. 5. In paragraph 11 of its general comment No. 14 (2000) on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights interprets the right to health as an inclusive right, encompassing both the underlying determinants of health and access to timely and appropriate health care. The right to health contains both freedoms, such as the right to control one’s health and body and the right to be free from interference, and entitlements, such as the right to a system of health protection that provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health.3 Regarding sexual and reproductive health in particular, freedoms include the right to make free and responsible decisions and choices, free of violence, coercion and discrimination, about matters concerning one’s body and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Entitlements, on the other hand, include unhindered access to a range of health facilities, goods, services and information, which ensure all persons full enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health. 4 1 2 3 4 See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/ESCR/Pages/HealthFramework.aspx. Regional instruments recognizing the right to health include: the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the European Social Charter. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14 (2000) on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, para. 8. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 22 (2016) on the right to sexual and reproductive health, para. 5. 3