The Challenges to the Emergency Medical Services to be Recognised as a Human Right in International Human Rights Law

TheEmergency Medical Services (EMS) are emergency services generally been designedto provide urgent treatment of patients with life-threatening conditionsoutside medical facilities. Even though the EMS belongs to the category ofsocio-economic rights, it nevertheless has great significance in safeguardingone of the most fundamental human rights, the right to life. In fact,international humanitarian law has recognised this important connection by establishingexplicit legal rules that oblige states to ensure urgent medical care for the woundedand sick. International human rights law, on the other hand, has no such expressedprovisions. However, the problem is not the lack of legal rules applicable tothe EMS as such but rather the challenges in human rights perception, whichhinder the EMS being perceived as a valuable human right. Therefore, thisarticle essentially argues that international human rights law does notrecognise the EMS as a human right sufficiently and that more thorough actionsare required from the UN Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(CESCR) in this regard.