Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, Dainius Pūras (April 2015)

This report was published by the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in April 2015. The report presents the workings of the then newly appointed Special Rapporteur in the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, Dainius Puras, from August 2014 to April 2015. 

The main body of the report is dedicated to an overview of the work of the mandate from the year 2003 to 2014, a way forward, themes as priorities, and conclusions and observations. Topics covered are a policy approach to the right to health, right to health policies: power asymmetries, unbalanced approaches and other challenges, global health in the post-2015 agenda, the right to health and public policy, mental health and emotional well-being, the life-cycle approach to the right to health, the right to health of persons with disabilities, violence as a major obstacle for the realization of the right to health, and the role of stakeholders. 

This report specifically mentions drug policy in section 27, where the special rapporteur notes that the current international system's punitive regime has failed to create a drug free world. He also calls for a shift in current drug control regimes to focus on human rights.

Citation: Dainius Puras, 'Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health' (2015), A/HRC/29/33