A/HRC/17/25 32. Moreover, the right to development focuses specifically on the duty of States to act jointly towards the realization of human rights. While the obligation of international cooperation is also recognized under ICESCR and other human rights treaties, 35 this aspect of both rights can be more comprehensively addressed through use of the right to development. In this regard, the high-level task force on the implementation of the right to development (HTF) developed a set of criteria for the evaluation of global partnerships (Millennium Development Goal 8). The criteria were developed around three attributes of the right to development: comprehensive and human-centred development policy; participatory human rights processes; and social justice in development. They include a number of sub-criteria and indicators, several of which relate to the right to health. In developing and testing these criteria, the Task Force inter alia examined partnerships relating to access to medicines and the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.36 33. The right to health can help operationalize the right to development. The right to development is not contained in a legally binding instrument at the international level, and thus, although it draws its foundations from binding human rights treaties, it is not directly enforceable in most countries.37 However, the Special Rapporteur notes that, in a recent landmark ruling, the African Commission determined that a State had violated the right to development enshrined in article 22 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.38 In this respect, the right to health may provide support in achieving development goals through judicial enforcement where the right to development currently lacks the legal tools to do so. Along with addressing longer-term, underlying determinants relating to development outcomes, narrower interventions should simultaneously be pursued to address immediate rights infringements that impact on development.39 34. For example, individuals are increasingly bringing cases before national courts concerning breaches of their right to health.40 This approach has been particularly successful in securing access to essential medicines, a core aspect of development progress. Such cases may be brought by a particular litigant, but may result in provision of medicines to affected communities, thereby demonstrating the fact that enforcement of the right to health need not occur only for the benefit of one individual.41 Such litigation represents a powerful tool, not only to achieve a particular legal outcome, but to significantly strengthen and empower a social movement around the cause forming the subject matter of the litigation in question,42 further ensuring realization of the right. 35. The operationalization of the right to development can also be informed by the significant amount of work undertaken in respect of the collective aspect of the right to health. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) has long recognized the importance of social justice for health; the Commission on Social Determinants of Health 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 See ICESCR Art 2, general comments 2 and 14, paras. 38-42 See A/HRC/12/WG.2/TF/CRP.1 and A/HRC/15/WG.2/TF/CRP.2 Felix Kirchmeier, “The Right to Development – where do we stand?” Dialogue on Globalization, Occasional Papers, No. 23 (July 2006), p. 11. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 4 February 2010: 276 / 2003 – Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v Kenya. Paul Farmer, “Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights,” American Journal of Public Health (October 1999), 89/10, pp. 1486-96. Hans V. Hogerzeil et al., “Is Access to Essential Medicines as Part of the Fulfilment of the Right to Health Enforceable through the Courts?”, Lancet vol. 368, No. 9532, pp. 305-311 (2006). Mark Heywood, “South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign: Combining Law and Social Mobilization to Realize the Right to Health” Journal of Human Rights Practice, vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2009), p. 22. Ibid. 11