International & European Framework for Protection of Human Rights in Patient Care

Health systems can too often be places of punishment, coercion, and violations of basic rights—rather than places of treatment and care.

This fact sheet includes the following:

• a list of major treaties that protect human rights in patient care, matching each one to its enforcement mechanism;
• a list of specific rights, along with the specific treaty provisions that define each one and examples of violations;
• concise summaries of each of the 14 rights outlined in the European Charter of Patients’ Rights;
• a chart pairing each of these rights with the corresponding established rights in the international and European human rights systems.