Chapter 2 - Report of the Complaints, Monitoring and Inquiries Group 2. RIGHT TO HEALTH IN PRISON It is my aspiration that health finally will be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for. Kofi Annan United Nations Secretary-General It is increasingly being recognized that good prison health is good public health. Dr Nata Menabde Deputy Regional Director, WHO Regional Office for Europe The right to health is a fundamental human right. The right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is not new. Internationally, it was first articulated in the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1946, whose preamble defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity1”. This definition has not been amended since 1948. The preamble further states that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition”; in other words, the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a basic human right without discrimination. The right to health - proclaimed seminally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 19482(UDHR) and codified in the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights3 (ICESCR) in 1966 is the foundation of global health governance. 1 2 3 Preamble to the Constitution of the WHO as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948. Article 25 Article 12 41