ABSTRACT
The twentieth century was a time of huge advances in global wealth. Yet the distribution of this wealth has been very uneven and huge numbers of the world’s population continue to live in conditions of dire poverty.1 The transformations taking place within the global economy seem set to increase these gaps even further. Increasingly, the global economy seems to fracture along lines that constitute different rights and entitlements between the developed and developing worlds. In the developing world, debates over health are often debates over entitlements to the basic conditions for health, while in the developed nations, and particularly in the West, debates over health are increasingly individualized and articulated as rights claims to access high-tech and expensive health care. For the inhabitants of the developed world, modern health care has been transformed by the ease of travel and by affluent living conditions. Health consumers are increasingly both willing and able to travel in order to access the health services they require or desire. The global accessibility of commercialized health services raises important regulatory questions for the crafting of laws and policies at the national and international levels. Does international health tourism pose a challenge to the laws and policies of individual countries seeking to regulate health services within their borders? Should countries seek to restrict or limit health tourism? This chapter explores the development of health rights at a global level, analysing these issues at the interface between health and rights that exists in relation to the global movement of people and the development of health tourism as a global phenomenon.
