Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Introduction: Health Inequality and Global Redistributive Justice
- Part 1 A Right to Equal Health?
- Part 2 Who is Responsible for Remedying Global Health Inequality?
- Part 3 Measuring Health and Health Outcomes
- Part 4 Borders and Health
- 11 Justice and Health Inequalities in Humanitarian Crises: Structured Health Vulnerabilities and Natural Disasters
- 12 ‘Illegal’ Migrants and Access to Public Health: A Human Rights Approach
- 13 Medical Migration between the Human Right to Health and Freedom of Movement
- 14 Healthcare Migration, Vulnerability and Individual Autonomy: The Case of Malawi
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - ‘Illegal’ Migrants and Access to Public Health: A Human Rights Approach
from Part 4 - Borders and Health
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Introduction: Health Inequality and Global Redistributive Justice
- Part 1 A Right to Equal Health?
- Part 2 Who is Responsible for Remedying Global Health Inequality?
- Part 3 Measuring Health and Health Outcomes
- Part 4 Borders and Health
- 11 Justice and Health Inequalities in Humanitarian Crises: Structured Health Vulnerabilities and Natural Disasters
- 12 ‘Illegal’ Migrants and Access to Public Health: A Human Rights Approach
- 13 Medical Migration between the Human Right to Health and Freedom of Movement
- 14 Healthcare Migration, Vulnerability and Individual Autonomy: The Case of Malawi
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
In this paper I ask whether ‘illegal’ migrants have a right of access to the public health systems provided by nation-states as part of the welfare provision for their citizens. The answer will have something to do with whether we can establish that they have a right to health which states are obliged to meet. I will argue that they do have such a right, and that right must be met through access to public health systems regardless of ‘legal’ status. The argument has two parts: first, that the level of agency that should be enjoyed by all human beings, regardless of their ‘legal’ status, requires that they have access to a certain level of healthcare as of right, otherwise we deny them their full humanity – we cannot deny people full humanity simply because they do not enjoy full citizenship; second, that those states that have signed and ratified certain international instruments regarding the right to health are obliged, under those instruments, to provide public healthcare to all within their territory, regardless of status, and are in breach of their international obligations if they fail to do so. And so the argument has two aspects: the first ethical, the second legal.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Health Inequalities and Global Justice , pp. 213 - 229Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2012