Commentary on an article by Alberto Quintavalla & Klaus Heine. Recognizing the importance of the right to health as a prerequisite to rights hierarchization

This commentary, on Heine and Quintavalla's article Priorities and Human Rights, considers the authors’ position that, while the right to life and other civil and political rights are equally as important as health and other social rights, some degree of prioritizing types of rights is necessary because all rights cannot be implemented simultaneously. This commentary concurs with Heine and Quintavalla's challenge to the common argument that civil and political rights are of higher importance (Phillips J, 2013; Farer T, 1992; Koji T, 2001). But this commentary goes further, in suggesting that before a society begins to prioritize implementation of human rights, it must first secure the basic understanding that the right to health is indeed equally important to civil and political rights. This commentary uses the example of national courts to show how judicial engagement with the right to health has begun to chip away at the boundary between the categories of rights. It suggests that greater interconnection among health and other rights has also made mapping out a hierarchical relationship far more difficult. Thus, before implementation can have any defined order, states must first come to a shared understanding regarding the equal if not greater importance of the right to health.