Privacy and Health in the Universal Declaration
Chapter Four
Syllabus topic 1, "Interrelationship of Science, Technology and Human Rights"
Pages 13 to 16 of 951
In one line
Two more articles of the Declaration matter here, because the two fields this paper examines in depth are the two they protect: information and medicine.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: Article 12 of the Universal Declaration protects against arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence, and against attacks on honour and reputation, and guarantees the protection of the law against such interference. Article 25 guarantees a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including medical care and necessary social services, and gives special protection to motherhood and childhood. Together with article 27 they supply the three points at which the Declaration touches the subject matter of this paper.
The provisions themselves
Article 12:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 25(1):
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Article 25(2):
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 12 broken down
"Arbitrary." The word is doing the central work, and it is the reason the article is usable seventy-five years later. It does not forbid all interference with privacy. It forbids interference that is arbitrary, which means without law, without a legitimate purpose, or disproportionate to that purpose. Module IV turns that single adjective into a four-part test.
"Privacy, family, home or correspondence." Four protected zones, listed because in 1948 those were the places a person could be intruded upon. The list is now the weakest part of the article, because the most valuable information about a person is no longer held at home or sent by post. It sits on a server owned by somebody else. The article's language survives only because "privacy" was stated first and separately, as a thing in itself rather than as a quality of the four places.
"Attacks upon his honour and reputation." A separate protection, and one that becomes newly important when a false statement can reach millions in an hour.
"The right to the protection of the law." Not merely a right to be left alone, but a right to a legal remedy. This is where the State's duty to protect enters: it must supply law that works against private intruders, not only refrain from intruding itself.
Privacy and Health in the Universal Declaration
Article 25 broken down
"An adequate standard of living." Health is not framed as a right to be treated when ill. It is framed as a right to the conditions in which a person can be well: food, clothing, housing and medical care in one list. That framing matters for this paper, because it means a State cannot answer a right-to-health claim purely by building hospitals.
"Health and well-being." Two words, and the second is wider. Well-being takes in mental health, which is why the Mental Healthcare Act's rights chapter in Module II belongs to this tradition and not to a separate one.
"Medical care and necessary social services." Medical care is named expressly. It is one item in a list, not the whole of the right.
"Security in the event of ... sickness, disability ... or other lack of livelihood." The article contemplates that illness is an economic event as well as a medical one. Catastrophic medical expenditure is therefore a rights question and not merely a policy failure.
"Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care." The clause that carries into Module II's chapters on pregnancy, termination, surrogacy and assisted reproduction, and into Module IV's chapter on children online.
How the two articles frame this paper
The structure of the Declaration explains the structure of the syllabus more neatly than the syllabus does.
| Declaration article | What it protects | Where this book takes it |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | Privacy, correspondence, honour, and a legal remedy | Module IV: data protection, surveillance, cyber offences |
| 25 | Standard of living adequate for health, medical care, motherhood and childhood | Module II: the whole of Medicine and the Law |
| 27 | A share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and protection of the author | Module I and Module IV: the right to science and the international response |
A student who can draw that table has a way into almost any question on this paper, because it shows that the three fields the syllabus examines are not an arbitrary selection. They are the three places the 1948 text already touched.
A worked example
A State introduces a national health database. Every citizen's medical record is uploaded, and researchers may apply for access to anonymised extracts.
Article 25 supports it. Better data means better treatment and better epidemiology, and the State's duty to secure an adequate standard of health is served by knowing what is making people ill.
Article 12 constrains it. Medical information is the most sensitive category there is. The interference must not be arbitrary: it needs a law, a legitimate purpose and proportionality, and the citizen needs a remedy if the safeguards fail.
Privacy and Health in the Universal Declaration
Article 27 complicates it. The research done on the database will produce benefits, and the population whose records made the research possible has a claim to share in them. If the outputs are licensed exclusively to a private firm, the article is engaged.
Notice that the three articles do not give one answer. They give three questions that a good answer must address. That is what the Declaration supplies to this subject: not a rule, but the agenda.
What beginners get wrong
Treating article 12 as absolute. It forbids arbitrary interference. A student who writes that surveillance always violates the Declaration has misread the operative word and will be unable to handle any realistic problem.
Reading article 25 as a right to free treatment. It is a right to an adequate standard of living for health, of which medical care is one named component. It says nothing directly about who pays.
Forgetting the second sentence of article 12. The right to the protection of the law is what makes the article bite against private actors, and private actors hold most of the data.
Quick revision
- Article 12: no arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence; no attacks on honour and reputation; and a right to the protection of the law against both.
- Arbitrary is the operative word: interference must be lawful, legitimate in purpose and proportionate.
- Article 25(1): a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and security in sickness, disability and old age.
- Article 25(2): special care for motherhood and childhood.
- Articles 12, 25 and 27 map onto Modules IV, II and I respectively.
Test yourself
1. Why is the word "arbitrary" in article 12 more important than the list of four protected zones? Because the list reflects where a person could be intruded upon in 1948, and most sensitive information is no longer held at home or sent by post. The adjective, by contrast, states a test that survives any change of technology: interference must be lawful, must pursue a legitimate purpose, and must be proportionate. It is the part of the article that later law was able to build on.
2. What does the second sentence of article 12 add? A right to the protection of the law against interference and attacks. Without it the article would restrain only the State. With it, the State is obliged to provide legal machinery that works against private intruders too, which is what makes the article relevant to data held by companies.
3. How does article 25 frame the right to health, and why does the framing matter? It frames it as a right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, with food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services in a single list. The framing matters because it prevents a State from answering a right-to-health complaint solely by pointing to hospitals: the conditions of health are part of the right, not a separate policy area.
Privacy and Health in the Universal Declaration
4. A national health database is challenged. Which Declaration articles are engaged and how do they pull? Article 25 supports the database, because better health information serves the State's duty to secure an adequate standard of health. Article 12 constrains it, because medical data is highly sensitive and the interference must not be arbitrary. Article 27 is engaged if research done on the data produces benefits, because the population whose records enabled it has a claim to share in those benefits.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.