Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 2 August 2025
Cuts feared to Gender, Equity and Rights Dept in WHO
Academics and activists around the world have joined in a letter writing campaign to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), imploring him not to dismantle the Gender, Equity and Rights Department, and downgrade its staff. Saying that with a global pushback on human rights, gender and inclusion underway, anti-rights voices are emboldened, the campaign therefore urges WHO to uphold its human rights and gender equality mandate. The letter states, “Now more than ever, we cannot respond to health risks without considering the intersecting inequalities that contribute to ill-health around the globe.”
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Reclaiming Sexual and Reproductive Rights Through a Decolonial Lens
Tlaleng Mofokeng, 26 May 2025
Advice to UN on US sanctions: “Don’t give in to bullies”
“To the UN and the ICC and their supporters, there can only be one message: Stay consistent and don’t give in to bullies,” writes Professor Carla Ferstman, Director of the Human Rights Center, Essex University. She details historical attempts to undermine international institutions in light of US sanctions imposed on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. Despite a long history of action against UN positions, this is the first time sanctions have been imposed on a UN independent expert.
Human Rights Office promotes a “human rights economy”
Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ilze Brands Kehris, released a report on economic, social and cultural rights this week, saying that “despite resource constraints” the Office will continue to work towards its strategic priority: a human rights economy. Such an economy aligns economic policies with human rights obligations, addresses systemic inequalities, and places dignity and sustainability at the heart of decision-making.
See also:
The Equity Effect of Universal Health Care, Anja Rudiger, Vol 25/2, 2023
Editorial: Economic Inequality and the Right to Health: On Neoliberalism, Corporatization, and Coloniality, Gillian MacNaughton and A. Kayum Ahmed, Vol 25/2, 2023
UN Experts welcome ICJ climate ruling
UN experts hailed the International Court of Justice landmark decision that states are obligated to protect the climate. “We applaud the Court and all those who contributed to this historic legal process recognising that climate change is an ‘existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet’,” the experts said. They welcomed the ICJ’s clarification that climate change affects human rights, such as life, health, adequate standard of living, protection from arbitrary displacement, and private life, and the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Chemical weapons case sees setback in France
In a case charging former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with international crimes for chemical weapons attacks in 2013 in Ghouta and Douma, Syria, the French Cour de cassation invalidated the arrest warrant for al-Assad due to his then-role as President of Syria. Physicians for Human Rights is concerned at the precedent set by this decision, saying “We are disheartened that the court chose to ignore repeated calls from the international community for accountability of those responsible for the deadly chemical weapons attacks.” The attacks had severe and lasting health consequences for survivors and took the lives of 1,400 individuals.
Gaza is a dystopian landscape: Türk
Ahead of the High-Level UN conference on Palestine at the end of July, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged governments to put “all possible pressure on the Israeli Government to end the carnage in Gaza – permanently” and for all parties to work towards a two-State solution. He described Gaza as a dystopian landscape and called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, and the delivery of aid to Palestinians.
UN Experts accuse Israel of withholding access to water
UN experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, condemned Israel’s blockade of aid and destruction of infrastructure that has left residents without access to the minimum vital amount of drinking water (as well as medicine and food). They wrote, “Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians,” adding that “these intentional, widespread, and systematic attacks against Palestinians are a deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a population – another act of genocide.”
Human Rights groups detail acts of genocide
“Israel is deliberately and systematically dismantling Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems.” Physicians for Human Rights Israel and B’Tselem published a report condemning Israel’s failure to comply with its obligations under international law and the Genocide Convention and it urges international bodies to “initiate proceedings and investigations as mandated by international law.”
See also:
A destruction of the conditions of life: Report on Genocide in Gaza, Fiona Campbell, 29 July 2025
UN urges Brazilian President to prevent environmental rights regression
Brazil’s General Environmental Licensing Bill, now pending presidential enactment, will have devastating consequences for human rights and have disproportionate impacts on already vulnerable populations, said a group of UN experts last Friday. “Protecting the environment is essential to safeguarding the rights and dignity of present and future generations,” they said, urging President Lula da Silva to veto the bill.
St Lucia court decriminalizes same-sex relations
UNAIDS applauded the High Court of Justice in St Lucia for its recent ruling declaring the criminalization of consensual same-sex relations unconstitutional. “This landmark decision underscores the transformative power of the law in protecting human rights and public health,” said Luisa Cabal, UNAIDS Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, adding it “opens doors for LGBTQ+ individuals to seek HIV prevention and care without fear.”
US cuts hit Haiti hard
In Haiti, US funding cuts have had serious impacts on humanitarian programming and have left millions of vulnerable people without critical support. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said “the current crisis demonstrates the country’s growing isolation”, as international attention wanes. Haitians are facing increasing armed violence, widespread displacement, increased reports of gender-based violence, and lack of vital health services, all of which contribute to growing despair in the long-suffering nation. The sectors most affected are food security, access to drinking water, primary healthcare, education and protection.
Contraceptives destroyed rather than donated
Nearly $10m worth of contraceptives were ordered to be destroyed rather than sending them to women in Africa, the Guardian reported this week. Destroying the long acting contraceptives was going to cost the United States $167,000. They were in a warehouse in Belgium awaiting shipment, but eradication of contraceptives is part of the Trump administration’s closing down of USAID, and withdrawal from humanitarian and development support.
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: The US Administration’s Assault on Global Reproductive Health and Autonomy, Winona Xu, Vol 27/1, 2025
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Are Women’s Rights Human Rights Once and for All? Flavia Bustreo, Revati Phalkey, Rajat Khosla, and Kate Gilmore, 7 July 2025
Medicaid data will help arrest immigrants
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials will have access to the personal data of 79 million Medicaid enrolees, including home addresses and ethnicities, helping them to track down and arrest immigrants. The information will give ICE officials the ability to find “the location of aliens” across the country, according to an agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security that has not been announced publicly.
See also:
From Information to Valuable Asset: The Commercialization of Health Data as a Human Rights Issue
Amy Dickens, Vol 22/2, 2020
South Korean government restarts talks with doctors, med students
South Korea’s new government has restarted talks with junior doctors and medical students, raising hopes for an end to a 17-month impasse over a plan to steeply increase medical school admissions, which drove 90% of Korea’s resident doctors to resign last year. The new consultative body, which includes health ministry and trainee doctors’ representatives, are discussing how to reinstate the thousands of trainee doctors who walked off the job in February 2024.
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Politics of Health in a State of Exception: Martial Law in South Korea, Yeon Jung Yu, Eojin Yi, Young Su Park, Martin McKee, and Jiho Cha, 15 July 2025
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