Litigating the Right to Health in Africa: Challenges and Prospects

Health rights litigation is still an emerging phenomenon in Africa, despite the constitutions of many African countries having provisions to advance the right to health. Litigation can provide a powerful tool not only to hold governments accountable for failure to realise the right to health, but also to empower the people to seek redress for the violation of this essential right. With contributions from activists and scholars across Africa, the collection includes a diverse range of case studies throughout the region, demonstrating that even in jurisdictions where the right to health has not been explicitly guaranteed, attempts have been made to litigate on this right. The collection focusses on understanding the legal framework for the recognition of the right to health, the challenges people encounter in litigating health rights issues and prospects of litigating future health rights cases in Africa. The book also takes a comparative approach to litigating the right to health before regional human rights bodies. This book will be valuable reading to scholars, researchers, policymakers, activists and students interested in the right to health.

Ebenezer Durojaye is involved in research and advocacy works on issues relating to socio-economic rights, including the rights to housing and health in Africa. His areas of interest include focusing on human rights issues raised by access to HIV/AIDS treatment, intersection between gender inequality and HIV/AIDS response in Africa, women’s health and adolescents sexual and reproductive rights in Africa. He is one of the Independent Experts of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and those at Risk, Vulnerable to and Affected by HIV. He is co-editor of Strengthening Sexual and Reproductive Health as Human Rights in Africa Pretoria University Law Press (2014). From 2012-2014 he provided technical support to the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.