Solidarity and the Encapsulated and Divided Histories of Health and Human Rights

Abstract

This article examines the central but neglected principle of solidarity in human rights, health and bioethics, a concept subject to contention, evasion and confusion. It addresses the general ambivalence toward solidarity within law, philosophy and politics by discussing solidarity’s co-evolution with inegalitarian encapsulations and divisions of human rights. It argues that a renewed conception of solidarity is essential to meet increasingly salient ethical demands, as gender equality and the individualization of responsibilities coincide with deficits of care and collective responsibility. Questions of embodiedness, (inter)dependence, care and asymmetry are neglected by dominant liberal approaches, but are key to rethinking solidarity.