Vaccines, Informed Consent, Effective Remedy and Integral Reparation: an International Human Rights Perspective

Abstract

This paper critically addresses the public debate about vaccines' safety and vaccination choice, from a human rights perspective. It proposes a healthy balance between the legitimate goal of public health and the protection of individual rights, and suggests that this balance should be informed by the principles of international human rights law. Part I explains the default premise that informed consent is the general rule for any medical intervention and choice. Considering that compulsory medical interventions violate the right to privacy and the right to physical integrity, their limitation will be legitimate only if the State's compulsory vaccination policy is provided by law, and if strictly necessary and proportional. Part II sets the international standards of an effective remedy that must be provided if a State decides to adopt a compulsory vaccination policy and people are injured as a result of vaccination, even if injuries might be attributable to private conduct. Part III develops the international standards of integral reparation and explains why, if a compulsory vaccination policy is enacted without fulfilling the adequate criteria for the limitation of human rights, the State commits an internationally wrongful act and it has the duty to provide integral reparation.