Organ Transplant Law: Assessing Compatibility with the Right to Health
Developing human rights indicators to evaluate the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act
Summary: This report develops structural, process and outcome indicators to identify changes needed to India’s organ transplant law to make it compatible with the international human right to health.
With instances of commercial dealings in human organs being discovered on a regular basis, it has become clear that there is a need to re-examine the law regulating organ transplants. In this report, we therefore analyse the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994, and the degree to which it has met its objectives. Using information obtained from different authorities under the Act, we assess its content and functioning against a set of ‘right to health’ indicators.
Based on this, we recommend changes to the law, which include the harmonisation of the definition of ‘brain death’ across different laws and amending the Act to ensure that victims of human trafficking are not treated as offenders.
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About the Authors
Dr. Dhvani Mehta {B.L.S. LL.B. (University of Mumbai); BCL, D.Phil (Oxon)} is a Co-Founder at Vidhi and Lead, Health. She has worked specifically on research projects on environmental clearances, the National Green Tribunal, organ transplant laws, end of life care, and pharmaceutical and medical device regulation. She has appeared in the Supreme Court of India in petitions filed by Vidhi on advance medical directives and discrimination against persons affected by leprosy. She has authored chapters on the implementation of environmental judgments and healthcare corruption in India. Dhvani read for a doctoral degree at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where she was Chairperson of Oxford Pro Bono Publico and an editor of the Oxford Human Rights Hub blog. Her doctoral thesis explores the idea of an environmental rule of law in India and was cited by the Supreme Court of India.
Yashaswini Mittal was a Research Fellow at Vidhi.
