One of the most obvious ways in which law impacts access to health care is through litigation of heath care rights (or related rights, such as the right to life). Many advocates of human rights believe as an article of faith that pursuing the realization of health rights will result in public welfare improvements and in particular will improve the plight of vulnerable populations. Others, however, express concern that court challenges will put undue pressure on public health care systems to expand access to, for example, highly expensive drugs of relatively low efficacy and/or result in human rights challenges that actually further a privatization agenda. In Canada, the Chaoulli decision
of the Supreme Court has been widely criticized from that perspective. At the conference, two presentations addressed this debate. In her contribution, Mariana Mota Prado discusses the case of Brazil — frequently held up as an example of “right to health” litigation worsening inequality of access to health care, by diverting public funds to expensive novel treatments for affluent claimants. Prado does not reject these claims, but she adds complexity to this debate by suggesting that one has to look at the longer-run impacts of this form of litigation. She argues resulting policy changes
that occur in multiple domains (e.g., institutional and governance shifts in the health care system, changes to the legal system) might be net beneficial, even if at first blush access to health care itself is worsened for the most vulnerable. She calls for further research to assess these effects and the long-term impact of right- to-health litigation.