We need a “more robust notion of health rights” that doesn’t put the health of humans above the health of the natural world and its other inhabitants.

In this essay, Himani Bhakuni highlights how nonhuman entities on the planet are included in a “right to health” framework “only to the extent that their lack of health would affect human well-being.”

Bhakuni argues that “all sentient and non-sentient beings” have a right to health, and that legal protections must go beyond the anthropocentric view that human needs, or the “common good,” always trump the needs and interests of nonhumans.

Read the essay.

This essay is part of the Special Section of the December 2021 Health and Human Rights Journal, edited by PZI’s co-founder and president, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian.

Article citation:

Bhakuni, Himani.“Beyond Anthropocentrism: Health Rights and Ecological Justice.” Health and Human Rights Journal 23, no. 2 (8 December 2021): 7-11.