FCGH Alliance

The Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) (http://www.globalhealthtreaty.org/) is a proposed global health treaty to be based in the right to health and aimed at global and national health equity. It would have three core aspects. First, it would guarantee rights-based universal health coverage. The FCGH would ensure health care and public health services for all, including the underlying determinants of health (e.g., clean water and sanitation, nutritious food), with international standards tailored nationally, and with accompanying financing. Taking a Health in All Policies approach, it would address the social determinants of health and demand that other sectors respect and help fulfill the right to health. Second, it would respond to a globalized world, including other areas of law that can undermine the right to health (e.g., trade and intellectual property), raising the priority of health in other legal regimes and sectors. Further, it would clarify governments’ right to health obligations beyond their national borders, encompassing but extending beyond international assistance. And third, the FCGH would respond to failures in implementing the right to health, particularly persisting high levels of inequities, exclusion, and discrimination, and lack of accountability and participation, particularly for and among marginalized populations. Under the FCGH, levels of access to health services would not depend on a person’s wealth, and the treaty would prohibit discrimination based on any status, whatsoever. The treaty would incorporate specific measures to increase health equity and support health for marginalized populations, including responding to violence against women. It would improve accountability nationally and globally, including by empowering people to be better able to hold their own governments accountable to their health commitments and right to health obligations.