WORLD Policy Analysis Center

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Health Health Health Health Health Constitutional Rights to HealthThe WORLD Policy Analysis Center analyzed national constitutional texts in force as of May 2017.

The Constitutions database includes analyses of constitutions from all UN member states.

We only referred to additional legislation when it was explicitly referenced in the constitution.

Although the vast majority of countries have written constitutions in place, a few countries (e.g. the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Israel) either have no written constitutions or have a series of laws that function similarly to a constitution, rather than a single text. In these cases, our data was collected from documents or laws that are considered to be constitutional in nature either by the country itself or by the legal community.

Why consider constitutions? Governments establish human rights through national and sub-national legislation, targeted programs and policies, and national constitutions. Among these tools, constitutions fulfill several unique and important functions:

Constitutions are fundamental building blocks of a nation’s government and laws. As such, they can play an important role in establishing values and rights.

Constitutions are particularly difficult to repeal or amend. Their commitments remain relatively stable and permanent even as different political parties assume power.

Constitutions are typically the highest laws of a country and so can be used to shape legislation and policies.

Constitutions often contain mechanisms for the legal enforcement of citizens’ rights. In countries around the world, such provisions have been used successfully to combat discrimination and hold governments accountable to their commitments.

Constitutions often outline broad rights that require complementary legislation or policies to be fully effective. For example, legislation that guarantees free secondary school helps realize the constitutional right to education. Nevertheless, constitutions’ critical role in formally establishing countries’ fundamental values makes them an important unit of analysis on their own.

Leave for Health NeedsThe WORLD Policy Analysis Center reviewed original labor and social security legislation, complemented and verified by information on social security systems from each UN member state and global sources to collect information about policies for adult labor. The following sources were used to gather information on this subject:

International Labour Organization (ILO)’s NATLEX database;

ILO’s Maternity Protection and Working Time databases;

World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law;

Official country websites;

Lexadin;

World Legal Information Institute;

The Social Security Programs Throughout the World database (SSPTW); and

Hard copies of relevant legislation at ILO’s headquarters in Geneva and McGill University's and Harvard University’s law libraries.

Additional information to fill in gaps from the abovementioned sources was drawn from the following:

International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research;

Benefit summaries and information available from the Mutual Information System on Social Protection (MISSOC) and the Mutual Information System on Social Protection of the Council of Europe (MISSCEO).

Initial data analysis has focused on national-level law and policy. In countries where labor policies are set at the state or provincial level, such as the U.S. and India, we coded based on the lowest level of guarantee.For details on the variables included in this category, please see WORLD global maps on Health.For more information about WORLD’s approach to building globally comparative databases on policies affecting human health, development, well-being, and equity, please visit our Methodology page.