A/HRC/34/32 mental health and community services); persons with mental health conditions; and persons with psychosocial disabilities, namely, persons who, regardless of self-identification or diagnosis of a mental health condition, face restrictions in the exercise of their rights and barriers to participation on the basis of an actual or perceived impairment. These categorizations may overlap: a user of mental health services may not have a mental health condition and some persons with mental health conditions may face no restrictions or barriers to their full participation in society. The groupings should not determine or undermine the protection of their rights recognized under human rights law, including the rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. III. The right to health framework 6. The right to health is recognized, either explicitly or implicitly, in several human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 12), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 24), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art. 25) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (arts. 10 (h), 11 (1) (f), 11 (2), 12 and 14 (2) (b)). It is an inclusive right encompassing both timely and appropriate health care and the underlying determinants of health. 6 In the case of mental health, determinants include low socioeconomic status, violence and abuse, adverse childhood experiences, early childhood development and whether there are supportive and tolerant relationships in the family, the workplace and other settings. 7. The right to health contains freedoms (such as the freedom to control one’s health and body and the right to be free from interference, torture and non-consensual medical treatment) and entitlements (such as the right to a health system that provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health). 7 While, in recognition of resource constraints, the right to health is subject to progressive realization, the freedom element in the right to health is subject to neither progressive realization nor resource availability.8 8. States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have a core obligation to fulfil the minimum essential levels of each right. The core obligations applicable to the right to health include ensuring the right of access to health facilities, goods and services on a non-discriminatory basis, especially for vulnerable or marginalized groups; ensuring access to adequate food and nutrition; ensuring access to basic shelter, housing and sanitation; providing access to essential drugs; ensuring an equitable distribution of all health facilities, goods and services; and adopting and implementing a national public health strategy and plan of action which address the health concerns of the whole population. 9 Among the obligations of comparable import are the obligations to ensure child health care, to provide education and access to health information and to provide appropriate training for health personnel, including education on health and human rights. 10 These core obligations apply as much to mental health as to physical health. 6 7 8 9 10 4 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, paras. 4 and 11. Ibid., para. 8. See E/CN.4/2005/51, para. 41. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, para. 43. Ibid., para. 44.