• Frank Brennan, Diederik Lohman, and Liz Gwyther.
• Frank Brennan is with St George and Calvary Hospitals, Sydney, Australia. Diederik Lohman is with Human Rights Watch, New York, NY. Liz Gwyther is with the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa.
• Am J Public Health. 2019 Jan 1; 109 (1): 616561-65.

AbstractThe concept of access to pain management as a human right has gained increasing currency in recent years. Commencing as individual advocacy, it was later embraced by the disciplines of pain medicine and palliative care and by mainstream human rights organizations.Today, United Nations and regional human rights bodies have accepted the concept and incorporated it into key human rights reports, reviews, and standards. We review the foundations in law of this right and the obligations that flow from it to governments. We analyze the nature and content of the obligation in the context of acute, chronic nonmalignant and cancer pain.Finally, we examine this right in light of the twin crises of inadequate access to pain management and the opioid crisis in the United States and other nations.

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