ABSTRACT

Access to information and the right to participate in the benefits of scientific research and progress are instrumental in the achievement of high standards of health. This is important in terms of the goods available to individuals, including access to quality medicines. But it is also critical that individuals have access to adequate information delivered in a culturally relevant and meaningful context. Indeed, the significant relationship between development, poverty and health is crucial to understand in the broader context for health, including the right to development1 and the right to cultural life.2 The relationship between the cultural life of scientific research and progress and the human right to health is arguably fundamental, yet it receives perhaps less attention in the context of access to medicines than the more explicit negotiations of the right to the highest attainable standard of health.3 Furthermore, the delivery of the right to development rests upon cultural participation and health as essential components of development itself. For these reasons, it is not merely related to but rather it is critical to the characterisation of the right to health to examine the relationship with development and culture. In the context of debates in intellectual property protection and commercialisation, this chapter considers the right to access quality medicines as an element of the right to cultural life, including the right to participate in the benefits of scientific research.