Chikungunya, Climate Change, and Human Rights Chikungunya is a re-emerging arbovirus that causes significant morbidity and some mortality. Global climate change leading to warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns allow mosquito vectors to thrive at altitudes and at locations where they previously have not, ultimately leading to a spread of mosquito-borne diseases. While mutations to the chikungunya virus are responsible for some portion of the re-emergence, chikungunya epidemiology is…
Chang – Abstract
Social Justice, Climate Change, and Dengue Climate change should be viewed fundamentally as an issue of global justice. Understanding the complex interplay of climatic and socioeconomic trends is imperative to protect human health and lessen the burden of diseases such as dengue fever. Dengue fever is rapidly expanding globally. Temperature, rainfall, and frequency of natural disasters, as well as non-climatic trends involving population growth and migration, urbanization, and international trade…
Carmalt – Abstract
Prioritizing Health: A Human Rights Analysis of Disaster, Vulnerability, and Urbanization in New Orleans and Port-au-Prince Climate change prompts increased urbanization and vulnerability to natural hazards. Urbanization processes are relevant to a right to health analysis of natural hazards because they can exacerbate pre-disaster inequalities that create vulnerability. The 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince and the 2005 hurricane in New Orleans provide vivid illustrations of the relationship between spatial inequality and…
Abstract – Levy
Collective Violence Caused by Climate Change and How It Threatens Health and Human Rights The weight of scientific evidence indicates that climate change is causally associated with collective violence. This evidence arises from individual studies over wide ranges of time and geographic location, and from two extensive meta-analyses. Complex pathways that underlie this association are not fully understood; however, increased ambient temperatures and extremes of rainfall, with their resultant adverse…
Abstract – Gibbons
Climate Change, Children’s Rights, and the Pursuit of Intergenerational Climate Justice Frequently forgotten in the global discussions and agreements on climate change are children and young people, who both disproportionately suffer the consequences of a rapidly changing climate, yet also offer innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (climate change mitigation) and adapt to climate change. Existing evidence is presented of the disproportionately harmful impact of climate-induced changes in precipitation…
Abstract – Hall
Advancing Climate Justice and the Right to Health Through Procedural Rights Scholars have increasingly recognized the ways in which climate change threatens the human rights of people around the world, with a disproportionate burden on the rights of already vulnerable persons. At particular risk to these populations is the right to health, as well as to interconnected human rights. Yet, scholars have generally not provided a thorough assessment of precisely…
The post-2015 development agenda: Adherence to human rights alone is inadequate
Letter to the Editor Published May 14, 2014 Dear Editor, “The post-2015 development agenda, human rights, evidence, and open-access publishing” (editorial, Volume 15, Issue 2) highlighted the importance of including human rights on the post-2015 development agenda.1 However, the editorial and calls by the UN’s High Commissioners for Human Rights and the UN Task Team’s “thematic think pieces” for a human rights-based approach to the post-2015 development agenda are narrow…
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Lawrence Gostin publishes Global Health Law
The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, a member of the Health and Human Rights Consortium, shares the following update about a new book from Lawrence O. Gostin. Georgetown University Law Center Professor and internationally acclaimed health scholar, Lawrence O. Gostin, offers a definitive work on a burgeoning field with his new book, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press). It published March 31, 2014. In a world rife with staggering health inequalities between…
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You’re Invited – O’Neill Institute 2014 Summer Programs!
The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, a member of the Health and Human Rights Consortium, invites you to their 2014 Summer Programs. Now in our third year, we are excited to present two programs this summer: (1) Emerging Issues in Food and Drug Law and (2) US Health Reform – The Affordable Care Act. Our Summer Programs convene leading practitioners, policymakers, advocates and academics in food…
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The University as Global Citizen
By guest contributor Juliet Sorensen As our world shrinks, universities must prepare their students for life outside the ivory tower while they are still inside it. The 2013 Global Alliance for Justice Education Worldwide Conference in Delhi focused on demand from the legal profession that law schools produce “the practice-ready lawyer,” graduating students with experience advocating for social and economic rights. Consulting firms recruit MBAs to advise companies on how…