A/HRC/39/25 referred to the different elements of the right to health, including availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability and quality, and underlined the importance of ensuring access to remedies to support the process of claiming the right to health. Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child referred not only to the obligation of States to take steps to reduce infant and child mortality, but also requested States parties to take all measures to abolish traditional practices that are prejudicial to children’s health; these included child marriage and female genital mutilation. According to international human rights law, States were obliged to implement the right to health to the maximum of their available resources. The idea of securing human rights to health and through health should be pursued further. She outlined the core challenges that had an impact on child mortality with regard to birth registration, children in situations of migration, and the imperative to prioritize the rights of the newborn child. 10. Laura Ferguson from the Program on Global Health and Human Rights at the Institute for Global Health (University of Southern California) presented an overview of, and lessons emerging from, the case studies identified in her research, including case studies shared prior to the meeting by expert participants. She discussed the relationship between legal human rights obligations and the importance of evidence in paediatrics. While discussing the findings of the case studies, she highlighted the imperative of accountability, data and monitoring, and concluded that a human rights-based approach could be applied to mortality and morbidity of children in diverse ways, with highly positive results. Beyond the legal imperative to implement a child rights-based approach, such an approach was extremely promising and could contribute to better health outcomes. A stronger base of evidence to demonstrate this could increase the attention paid to rightsbased approaches and support the realization of children’s rights and their health. 11. According to some participants, health workers could be promoters of rights, and should be protected and supported by means of training and education, which would enable them to claim their own rights and deliver quality care. There was also a need to address social norms and the determinants of health; a holistic life cycle approach should be applied, including due attention to the role of women and violence against them, which had a major impact on rates of child survival. When considering how to realize rights through health, participants stated that it was essential to examine health inequities, and that rights could be realized through health in diverse ways, depending on the context, such as in cross-border and migration situations. Participants emphasized the ways in which power dynamics played a role in health outcomes, and called into question legalistic applications of human rights, noting that, in the case of South Africa, access to antiretroviral therapies had been won by pursuing legal rights also through political engagement. C. Legal and policy measures to promote rights-based health care 12. Haroon Saloojee of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg made a presentation on a landmark judgment in support of child rights in South Africa. He noted that arguments had been put forward against providing anti-retroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, one of which was their cost. Political action had been taken at the grass-roots level, followed by legal action to force doctors to prescribe those drugs. Following a court case that found that failure to provide anti-retroviral drugs was a violation of the constitutional right to basic health care, the High Court ordered the Government to begin a countrywide mother-to-child transmission prevention programme. In the decade following the court case, half a million infants were saved and transmission rates dramatically decreased. This case demonstrated that successful litigation on human rights required respect for the rule of law, a Government willing to prioritize constitutional rights, and an active civil society willing to challenge the Government. 13. Suzanne Aho, member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and former Minister for Health of Togo, discussed the legal and policy measures taken to combat newborn and child mortality in Togo. Despite the shortfalls in funds allocated to health, it remained a national policy priority. In the efforts made to reduce infant and maternal mortality, one ongoing challenge were the unofficial clinics that claimed to treat mothers and newborns but that neither followed medical procedures nor had adequate equipment. In 5