UN Mandate on the Right to Health

Dr Dainius Puras

The United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Dr Dainius Pūras from Lithuania as Special Rapporteur on the right to health at its twenty-sixth session in June 2014. Dr Mr Pūras, a medical doctor with notable expertise on mental health and child health, took up his functions as Special Rapporteur on 1 August 2014.

Dr Pūras is a Professor and the Head of the Centre for Child psychiatry social paediatrics at Vilnius University, and teaches at the Faculty of Medicine, Institute of International Relations and Political Science and Faculty of Philosophy at Vilnius University, Lithuania. He is also Visiting Professor at the Ilia State University, Georgia. As a medical doctor, he serves as a consultant at the Child Development Center, at Vilnius University Hospital.

Dainius Pūras is a human rights advocate who has been actively involved during the last 30 years in the process of transforming public health policies and services, with special focus on the rights of children, persons with mental disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. He was the founder of Lithuanian Society of Families with Children who have Intellectual Disabilities; the first President of the Lithuanian Psychiatric Association; the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Vilnius University; and the Chairman of the board of two non-governmental organisations in Lithuania, the Global Initiative on Psychiatry and the Human Rights Monitoring Institute.

As a researcher, Dr Pūras has led and actively participated in projects at the national and international level in areas such as mental health policies and services, policies and services for children and families at risk, rights and needs of children with developmental disabilities, and prevention of violence. Dr Pūras works closely with different stakeholders for the translation of scientific evidence into effective policies and practices through the application of modern human rights and public health approaches.

Between 2007 and 2011, Dr Pūras served as a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. He has been an independent expert and consultant to numerous governments, NGOs, and UN agencies and programmes in the field of the right to health. He is author of over 60 scientific publications covering issues such as public health, mental health, public health policy, disabilities, and prevention of violence.

The mandate

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health was originally established by the Commission on Human Rights in April 2002 by resolution 2002/31. Subsequent to the replacement of the Commission by the Human Rights Council in June 2006, the mandate was endorsed and extended by the Human Rights Council by its resolution 6/29 of 14 December 2007.

The Special Rapporteur implements the mandate through different means and activities. As assigned by the different resolutions related to the mandate:

• The Special Rapporteur presents annual reports to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly on the activities and studies undertaken in the view of the implementation of the mandate;
• He/she monitors the situation of the right to health throughout the world. He/she identifies general trends related to the right to health and undertakes country visits which provide the Special Rapporteur with a first-hand account on the situation concerning the right to health in a specific country;
• He/She communicates with states and other concerned parties with regard to alleged cases of violations of the right to health and other issues related to his/her mandate;
• He/She promotes the full realisation of the right to health through dialogue with relevant actors by participating in seminars, conferences, expert meetings.

Key thematic areas addressed are:

• Right to health in early childhood
• Right to health in adolescence
• The right to health and sustainable development goals
• The right to the highest attainable standard of mental health
• The right to health and corruption
• The right to health and confinement
• The right to health and people on the move

Special reports

• The Criminalization of Healthcare (.pdf) is a special report produced with the Safeguard Health in Conflict Coalition, the University of Essex, and the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It reviews the laws, prosecutions and other forms of state-inflicted violence in multiple countries against individual healthcare providers for providing healthcare to alleged terrorists or enemies.
• To learn more about the countries reviewed in this report, please see this Appendices: Country Profiles (.pdf)

Factsheets

• Human rights-based approaches to health workforce education (.pdf)
• The Right to Mental Health (.pdf)
• The Right to Mental Health Promotion (.pdf)
• Right to health in early childhood (.pdf) fact sheet summarising the mandate’s priority areas on this issue.
• Right to health in adolescence (.pdf) fact sheet summarising the mandate’s priority areas on this issue.

Thematic reports

• 2017 Corruption and the right to health
• 2017 Report of the SR on the right to mental health
• 2016 Report of the SR on the right to health and Agenda 2030
• 2016 Report to the Human Rights Council (main focus: right to health of adolescents)
• 2016 Report to the Human Rights Council ( main focus: sports and healthy lifestyles as contributing factors to the right to health)
• 2015 Report to GA (main focus: right to health in early childhood- right to survival and development)
• 2015 Report to the Human Rights Council (focus: work of the mandate and priorities of the SR)

Country reports

Country reports will be added as they are available.

• 2017 Report of the Special Rapporteur on his visit to Algeria, (28 April-10 May 2016)
• 2017 Report of the Special Rapporteur on his visit to Croatia, (28 November to 6 December 2016)
• 2017 Report of the Special Rapporteur on his visit to Visit to Indonesia, (22 March to 3 April 2017)
• 2016 Report of the Special Rapporteur on his visit to Paraguay, (23 September-3 October 2015)
• 2016 Report of the Special Rapporteurs on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences on their joint visit to Nigeria, (18-22 January 2016)
• 2015 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health on his visit to Malaysia, (19 November-2 December 2014)

Interventions and press statements

2015

• Damien Gayle, ‘Decriminalise drugs to meet users' right to good health, says UN adviser’, The Guardian, December 2015
• Dainius Pūras, Open Letter by the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health, Dainius Pūras, in the context of the preparations for the UN General Assembly Special Session on the Drug Problem (UNGASS), which will take place in New York in April 2016, December 2015
• ‘WTO: UN experts urge negotiators to deliver on Doha commitments at the Nairobi conference’, December 2015
• ‘Statement by UN Special Rapporteurs in advance of WTO 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi’, December 2015
• ‘“As the Covenants turn 50, it is time to turn norms into action” – UN experts, December 2015
• ‘UN experts urge Latin America and the Caribbean to adopt trend-setting agreement on environmental democracy’, October 2015
• ‘Statement by United Nations experts on the ECLAC’s negotiation of a regional instrument on environmental democracy’, October 2015
• ‘Right to pain relief: 5.5 billion people have no access to treatment, warn UN experts World Hospice and Palliative Care Day’, October 2015
• ‘“Dignity must prevail” – An appeal to do away with non-consensual psychiatric treatment World Mental Health Day’, October 2015
• ‘UN expert calls on Paraguay for a sustained commitment to the right to health’, October 2015
• ‘Country Visit to Paraguay, 23 September to 6 October 2015 by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health Mr. Dainius Pūras, Preliminary observations’, October 2015
• ‘More needs to be done to protect women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights – UN and regional experts On the occasion of the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, September 2015
• ‘UN expert on the right to health launches first official visit to Paraguay’, September 2015
• ‘Des experts de l’ONU demandent à la France la cessation de l’institutionnalisation d’un enfant autiste dans un hôpital psychiatrique’ , September 2015
• ‘“Deeply distressing” – UN experts condemn latest prison sentencing of rights defenders in Azerbaijan’, August 2015
• ‘Essex supports UN Mandate holder to promote health rights’, University of Essex press release
• ‘UN rights experts urge Pakistan to halt ongoing surge in executions and to reinstate moratorium on death penalty’, July 2015
• ‘UN experts urge Israel to halt legalization of force-feeding of hunger-strikers in detention’, July 2015
• ‘Singapore / Freedom of expression: UN expert alarmed by sentencing of teenager blogger’, July 2015
• ‘Joint statement by UN Special Procedures on the occasion of World Environment Day (5 June 2015)’, June 2015
• ‘UN experts voice concern over adverse impact of free trade and investment agreements on human rights’, June 2015
• ‘Myanmar: UN rights experts express alarm at adoption of first of four ‘protection of race and religion’ bills’, May 2015
• ‘A central role for a civil society is the only way to guarantee inclusive post-2015 development goals’, May 2015
• ‘Discriminated and made vulnerable: Young LGBT and intersex people need recognition and protection of their rights International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia - Sunday 17 May 2015’, May 2015
• ‘Human rights: Paraguay has failed to protect a 10-year old girl child who became pregnant after being raped, say UN experts’ , May 2015
• ‘Discrimination against autistic persons, the rule rather than the exception – UN rights experts’ , April 2015
• ‘Guadalupe’s pardon: UN experts urge El Salvador to pardon all women jailed for pregnancy complications and repeal restrictive abortion law’, January 2015

2014

• ‘UN independent experts urge practical measures to eradicate racial discrimination’, December 2014
• ‘Malaysia / Right to health: UN expert calls for a non-selective approach to consolidate achievements’, December 2014
• ‘Preliminary observations and recommendations by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health Mr. Dainius Pūras Country Visit to Malaysia, 19 November to 2 December 2014’, December 2014
• ‘Kyrgyzstan: “Don’t condemn LGBT people to silence” – UN rights experts urge Parliament to withdraw anti-gay bill’ , November 2014
• ‘UN expert to focus on the right to health in Malaysia’, November 2014
• ‘Who cares about the suffering of older persons at the end of their lives? We do – UN rights experts’, October 2014