A/61/338 A. Right-to-health norms and obligations relevant to maternal mortality 13. The right to the highest attainable standard of health entitles women to services in connection with pregnancy and the post-natal period, and to other services and information on sexual and reproductive health.11 These entitlements encompass the key technical interventions for the prevention of maternal mortality, including access to a skilled birth attendant, emergency obstetric care, education and information on sexual and reproductive health, safe abortion services where not against the law, and other sexual and reproductive health-care services.12 14. While the right to health includes entitlements to specific health-related goods, services and facilities, it should also be understood more broadly as an entitlement to an effective and integrated health system, encompassing health care and the underlying determinants of health, which is responsive to national and local priorities, and accessible to all (see E/CN.4/2006/48, para. 4). This is important in the context of maternal mortality. An equitable, well-resourced, accessible and integrated health system is widely accepted as being a vital context for guaranteeing women’s access to the interventions that can prevent or treat the causes of maternal deaths.13 15. In recent years, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and others, have developed a framework for unpacking the norms and obligations of the right to health. This framework — which is outlined in paragraph 45 — can be applied in the context of particular right-to-health issues such as maternal mortality. The framework provides a useful prism through which to understand the relevance of the right to health in the context of maternal mortality, and can also serve as a useful reference point for integrating the right to health into policymaking (see paras. 16-24). Drawing on this framework, the Special Rapporteur wishes to make some non-comprehensive observations about right-tohealth norms and obligations relevant to reducing maternal mortality, including in the context of strengthening health systems. Health care 16. The right to health has a particular preoccupation with guaranteeing primary health care. A priority intervention to prevent maternal mortality is ensuring functioning primary health-care systems, “from community-based interventions to the first referral-level facility at which emergency obstetric care is available”.14 17. The right to health entitles women to reproductive health-care services, goods and facilities that are: (a) Available in adequate numbers.15 Among others, this gives rise to an obligation on States to ensure an adequate number of health professionals. Improving human resource strategies, including increasing the number of health professionals and improving terms and conditions, is a vital prerequisite for reducing maternal mortality in many countries;16 (b) Accessible physically and economically.17 Physical access to, and the cost of, health services often influence women’s decisions about whether or not to seek care.18 In many countries, reducing maternal mortality will depend on making 6 06-51997