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Camila Gianella-Malca, Oscar Parra-Vera, Alicia Ely Yamin, y Mauricio Torres-Tovar [Editor’s note: A PDF version of this article is available here.] Executive Summary [English] Democratic deliberation or social marketing? The dilemmas of a public definition of health in the context of the implementation of Judgment T–760/08 In July 2008, the Colombian Constitutional Court (the Court) issued a decision in which it called upon the Colombian government to adopt a series…

Continue reading “¿Deliberación democrática o mercadeo social? Los dilemas de la definición pública en salud en el contexto del seguimiento de la Sentencia T–760 de 2008”

Agnès Binagwaho, Niloo Ratnayake, Mary C. Smith Fawzi [PDF version] At a time when accountability is a key message for countries, constituencies, and organizations, it is important that major multilateral agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) are also held accountable for actions taken or not taken. This article first reviews the methods of monitoring growth and development among children under five years of age by the WHO. It…

Continue reading “Holding multilateral organizations accountable: The failure of WHO in regards to childhood malnutrition”

In 1995, after producing a successful weekly TV program about apartheid in South Africa against all odds, we broadcast an edition of a new series that explored revolutionary ideas about human rights, such as those then being formulated by a visionary at Harvard named Jonathan Mann. In our show, called Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television, Dr. Mann laid out in typically brilliant fashion the crystal-clear thinking behind his vision…

Continue reading “Health and Human Rights: A Journalist’s Perspective”

I’ve been supporting Partners In Health’s project in Lesotho for more than two years – almost since it began. Lesotho is a world away – both literally & figuratively – from the FXB Center office in Boston where I work and where the Health and Human Rights editorial office is based. An independent country completely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho is home to almost two million people, most of whom…

Continue reading “One baby at a time: Saving children in Lesotho”

As the nationwide crisis in the housing and credit markets unfolds, a community-based coalition of health care and social service providers, affordable housing developers, and community organizers convened on October 10, 2008 to highlight human rights-based solutions to the crisis in one of America’s hardest-hit communities, South Los Angeles. Read and hear coverage of this report from 89.3 KPCC, NPR Radio in Los Angeles! Click here to view the full…

Continue reading “Taming the Perfect Storm”

On September 17, 2008, Health and Human Rights: An International Journal celebrated its recent re-release as an open access publication with a panel discussion on “Creating on Open Forum to Advance Global Health and Social Justice.” The panel included Dr. Paul Farmer, Editor-in-chief; Dr. Jim Kim, Publisher and Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health which funds the journal;…

Continue reading “Making the case for the right to health”

We post here the original Spanish text of Dr. Armando De Negri Filho’s contribution to this issue of Health and Human Rights, titled, “El enfoque de los derechos humanos en calidad de vida y salud y su aplicación en la reestructuración programática y la reorganización de los servicios: reflexiones alrededor de una estrategia de aplicación:” El enfoque de la salud como un derecho humano fundamental tiene un impacto profundo en…

Continue reading “A human rights approach to quality of life and health: Applications to public health programming [Spanish]”

Olga Shevchenko and Renée C. Fox write: From the inception of our joint fieldwork in Moscow, and throughout the drafting of this article based upon it, we repeatedly said to one another, “I couldn’t have done this without you!” More than our reciprocal enjoyment in working together was expressed in this recurrent exclamation. It also contained our mutual recognition and appreciation of the distinctive contribution that each of us made…

Continue reading “We couldn’t have done it without them!”

Gavin Yamey writes: Something profoundly important has happened to the journal you are reading. For a start, you no longer have to pay a subscription to read it, which means that anyone in the world who can access the Internet will be able to benefit from its scholarship.The journal will, as a result, reach new audiences: patients, non-governmental organizations, teachers, students, health policymakers, and others.What’s more, the articles are now…

Continue reading “Building the “Knowledge Commons””