The Center for Health and Human Rights submits an input to the United Nations on mobilizing public resources to finance sustainable development
The Center for Health and Human Rights (CHHR) of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law submitted an input on August 20 in response to the call of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights about the realization of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights, with a special focus on the mobilization of public resources, which will inform a report to be presented at the 64th session of the Human Rights Council.
The submission focused on addressing questions about promising practices for States to strengthen the mobilization of public resources for the realization of ESC rights. It highlighted how health taxes and cost recovery frameworks are complementary legal tools to raise and recover revenue, while supporting the equitable realization of the right to health, including fighting the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Health taxes on products such as tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages and other ultra-processed products are measures that can simultaneously advance public health goals and domestic resource mobilization. By increasing the price of unhealthy products, health taxes can discourage consumption of unhealthy products thereby helping to prevent NCDs, while mobilizing resources that States can allocate toward health and other priorities. These taxes equitably benefit low- and middle-income countries, families, and individuals that ultimately bear the costs of NCDs.
Drawing on experiences from countries including Colombia, South Africa, and the Philippines, the submission emphasizes the importance of evidence-informed policy design, including clear public health objectives and regular review of tax measures to preserve their effectiveness. For example, Colombia’s reforms on sugar-sweetened beverages and other ultra-processed products have combined progressive taxation with reductions in consumption and increased government revenue, just as tobacco tax reforms contributed to declines in tobacco use and generated resources for health.
Cost recovery frameworks encompass legal mechanisms through which States may seek to recover public costs associated with preventable harms caused by certain corporate practices and products. The submission situates cost recovery frameworks, especially healthcare cost recovery, within a broader human rights framework, emphasizing its potential contribution to States’ obligation to maximize available resources for the realization of ESC rights, notably the right to health.
The CHHR highlights examples of healthcare cost recovery litigation and regulations in the United States, Canada, Brazil, and the Republic of Korea. These experiences demonstrate different ways in which legal mechanisms can be used to address the costs imposed on health systems by harmful products and corporate practices.
Taken together, these measures can play an important role in domestic resource mobilization for health. Health taxes can help prevent NCDs while generating public resources, and healthcare cost recovery frameworks can replenish revenue lost in healthcare costs while addressing NCDs. Through this submission, the CHHR seeks to contribute to the report on the realization of ESC rights to support States’ practices on meeting their obligation to mobilize and maximize available resources.