E/CN.4/2005/21 page 12 67. Alicia Ely Yamin, professor at the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, United States of America, began her presentation on the use of statistical data and indicators to monitor and promote the health rights of people of African descent, by referring to the American civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior who asserted that “of all forms of discrimination, discrimination in health is the cruellest”. 68. Ms. Yamin based her presentation on the core provisions on the right to health contained in article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and article 5 (e) (iv) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which called for States parties to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the rights to public health and medical care. 69. She asserted that a review of those treaties, together with the other interpretative documents, established that the right to health included: (a) both health care and healthy conditions - including environmental and living conditions that constituted social determinants of health; and (b) effective participation in decisions affecting one’s personal or group well-being. 70. Eliminating racially based health disparities required collecting data on and addressing factors that went far beyond the health sector. With respect to the difference between a health indicator and a right to health indicator, she referred to the work of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Mr. Paul Hunt, who believed that a right-to-health indicator derived from, reflected and was designed to monitor the realization or otherwise of specific right-to-health norms, usually with a view to holding a duty-bearer to account. 71. The need for desegregation applied to measuring the policies and conduct of Governments. Although it was a challenge, collecting disaggregated data, alone was insufficient. Appropriate mechanisms had to be established to regularly and systematically analyse data for the purpose of detecting racial disparities, and in turn redressing such disparities and providing accountability. Such mechanisms, which are exceptionally rare today at the country level, even in wealthy countries, should exist at both the national and international levels. 72. When understood and appropriately used, statistical data and indicators could: (a) provide new understanding of the health problems of people of African descent by identifying areas and patterns of omission or violation; (b) present systematic information with respect to disparities as well as factors to assist in monitoring and comparisons, and suggest policy directions at national and international levels; (c) promote public awareness and debate about the health situations of people of African descent and highlight specific issues and disparities; and (d) communicate concisely the value of eliminating racial discrimination and protecting the health rights of people of African descent as well as other victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. 73. Dr. Florence Nantulya, a consultant paediatrician from Switzerland, made a presentation on disparities that have emerged in the fields of infant and maternal mortality rates, childhood immunizations, HIV/AIDS, heart diseases, cancer and contagious (communicable) diseases. She