A/61/338 The right-to-health analytical framework 44. The right to the highest attainable standard of health is a large and complex human right. In recent years, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, WHO, civil society organizations, academics and many others, have developed a way of “unpacking” or analysing the right to health with a view to making it easier to understand and apply in practice to health-related policies, programmes and projects (e.g. the Committee’s general comment 14). For his part, the Special Rapporteur has tried to apply and refine this analytical framework in his country and other reports. He strongly recommends that policymakers use this analytical framework because it will deepen their understanding of the right to health, enabling them to strengthen their health-related policies and other interventions. In this way, the analytical framework will become a common language for discussing a wide range of health issues through the lens of the right to health. 45. While the analytical framework is set out in more detail elsewhere, its key elements may be very briefly summarized as follows: – Identification of the relevant national and international human rights laws, norms and standards; – Recognition that the right to health is subject to resource constraints and progressive realization, requiring the identification of indicators and benchmarks to measure progress (or the lack of it) over time; – Nonetheless, recognition that some obligations arising from the right to health are subject to neither resource constraints nor progressive realization, but are of immediate effect, for example, the obligation to avoid de jure and de facto discrimination; – Recognition that the right to health includes freedoms (e.g. freedom from nonconsensual treatment and non-consensual participation in clinical trials) and entitlements (e.g. to a system of health care and protection). For the most part, freedoms do not have budgetary implications, while entitlements do; – All health services, goods and facilities shall be available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality. This scheme is briefly applied to medicines in paragraphs 47-51 below; – States have duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This, too, is briefly applied to medicines in paragraphs 59-60 below; – Because of their crucial importance, the analytical framework demands that special attention is given to issues of non-discrimination, equality and vulnerability; – Participation: the right to health requires that there is an opportunity for the active and informed participation of individuals and communities in decisionmaking that bears upon their health; – International assistance and cooperation: developing countries have a responsibility to seek international assistance and cooperation, while developed States have some responsibilities towards the realization of the right to health in developing countries; and 12 06-51997