United Nations human rights treaty bodies are increasingly engaging with the role of private actors in healthcare. GI-ESCR publishes today a renewed compendium collecting United Nations human rights treaty bodies’ concluding observations on private involvement in healthcare. aiming to support academics, policy-makers and other NGOs in their work on healthcare privatisation. The compendium is based on a systematic search of the Universal Human Rights Index over 2006-2020.

United Nations human rights treaty bodies have increasingly engaged with the role of private actors in healthcare. In particular, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as well as the Committee against Torture (CAT) have all addressed this topic, especially regarding marginalised groups. Private healthcare actors comprise private insurance providers, commercial pharmaceutical companies as well as entities involved in managing, financing or delivering healthcare services. This fundamental normative reflection is increasing and our database captures this fruitful trend.

From this practice, several cross-cutting normative elements emerge:

• States must assess the impact of any healthcare privatisation and ensure that it does not impede the realisation of the right to health.

• States must monitor and regulate private healthcare providers.

• Public-private partnerships are questionable in the light of the obligations to use resources effectively.

• States must ensure that private health insurance does not impinge on access to healthcare.

• States must address disparities between public and private healthcare systems, improving the quality of public healthcare services.

Our compendium was mentioned in Realizing the Rights to Food, Health, and Housing By Tamar Ezer, Acting Director & Denisse Córdova Montes, Acting Associate Director Human Rights Clinic of the University of Miami School of Law.

With regards to the last point on the privatization of basic services, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights just released a compendium, collecting the statements of United Nations (UN) treaty bodies on private actors’ involvement in health care, as a tool for advocates.