Separate Paths for UNICEF and the WHO, 1946–1957

Abstract

This chapter explores the influence of interwar practices of international health on global health organizations and the concept of health as a right following the Second World War. The constitution for the World Health Organization (WHO) rearticulated its predecessor’s principles as a right to health. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) echoed this antecedent and emphasized the relevance of social factors. In the early Cold War political climate, the WHO soon sidelined those legacies, while Ludwik Rajchman and his allies preserved the League Health Organization’s methods for a time in the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF programs offered direct temporary assistance in caring for individuals and supported states in rebuilding and developing capacities for welfare services. It operated on the principle that states had a responsibility for citizens’ welfare, and that states should receive international assistance to meet that obligation. As the UDHR acknowledged, not all states had the resources to protect all social and economic rights. UNICEF exhibited a way for international action to expand states’ potential. Like the League of Nations Health Organization, UNICEF became an institution that belonged in significant ways to the small states and territories.