Dutifully Defying Death: A Right to Life-saving Emergency Treatment

Abstract

Abstract Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides for the right to health. Two questions are considered in this article. Does this right entail a more specific right to life-saving emergency treatment? And if so, should the latter right become justiciable in the domestic courts? Two propositions will be made in this article. First, the right to life-saving emergency treatment is a necessary component of the right to health. Second, the conventional arguments against the justiciability of socio-economic rights do not apply to the right to life-saving emergency treatment. Such a right should be justiciable at the domestic level.