ABSTRACT
The distinction between ‘duties of progressive realisation’ and ‘duties of immediate realisation’ is seminal to the definition of economic, social, and cultural right (ESCR), among which the human right to health is included. The distinction was introduced to accommodate the fact that the full realisation of ESCR is a long process. The human rights protection mechanism of the Organisation of American States (OAS) is composed of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAcHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In elaborating on the concept of flexibility as the key feature of duties of progressive realisation and obligations of result, the IACHR clarifies that there is no particular time frame to achieve such result. The difference in scope between duties of progressive realisation and duties of immediate realisation is not sufficiently clear in the international legal context of the human right to health.
