A/63/263 being”. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lays the foundations for the international framework for that fundamental human right, now codified in numerous national constitutions, as well as international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Guidelines also draw from other widely accepted standards, such as instruments on medicines adopted by WHO in recent years. V. Conclusion 48. Since this is the Special Rapporteur’s last thematic report, he takes the opportunity to make some brief observations arising from his tenure between 2002 and 2008. Analytical and methodological issues 49. The right to the highest attainable standard of health is complex and extensive. It encompasses medical care and the underlying determinants of health, such as water, sanitation, non-discrimination and equality. To make sense of this complexity, the Special Rapporteur has drawn from the work of many others and refined an analytical framework for “unpacking” the right to the highest attainable standard of health, with a view to making this fundamental human right easier to grasp. This framework is employed in all of the Rapporteur’s thematic and country reports. 50. Thematic reports apply the right-to-health framework to a range of health issues, including maternal mortality, essential medicines, water and sanitation, the skills drain, sexual and reproductive health, mental disability, the healthrelated Millennium Development Goals, neglected diseases, international assistance and cooperation, health systems, and others. Of course, many other right-to-health issues need urgent attention, including palliative care. 51. Three of the Special Rapporteur’s thematic reports have looked at a major methodological question: how is it possible to check whether or not a State is progressively realizing the right to health? The Special Rapporteur’s third report on indicators and benchmarks sets out a human rights-based approach to health indicators. 8 Of course, this methodology can be improved. But it is now difficult to argue that there is no way of measuring the progressive realization of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. 52. Another report looks at impact assessments. Any modern policymaker, unless purely driven by ideology, will wish to consider the likely human rights impact of a proposed new policy or programme. The Special Rapporteur’s report to the General Assembly last year sets out a methodology for right-tohealth impact assessments (A/62/214). 53. Another chapter in the same report begins to explore the problem of prioritization. Given finite budgets, how does a Government choose between competing right-to-health priorities? __________________ 8 12 E/CN.4/2006/48. 08-45647