Category: Blog

Michael Garcia Bochenek and Warren Binford The sounds of sobbing children, some struggling to breathe, outraged the public in June 2018 as the impact of the Trump administration family separation policy became widely known.[1] The policy was striking for the deliberate way it inflicted harm on children in the name of deterrence. The authorities rolled it out along the US-Mexico border after a six-month pilot, fully aware of its adverse…

Continue reading “Children Arriving in the United States Need Strong Safeguards”

Jonathan Todres Child development is multi-faceted and complex. Although the lived experience of children cannot be neatly parsed into siloes, government responses to, and support for, children are typically divided among sectors. From education to health care to juvenile justice, different departments and agencies typically develop and implement narrowly defined programs. The problem with this approach is that it risks failing to deliver meaningful assistance to the children and adolescents…

Continue reading “Moving Beyond Siloes: Urgent Need for an Integrated Approach to Children’s Rights and Well-Being”

Paul Farmer 1959-2022 In memory and celebration of our Editor-in-Chief Paul Farmer, we invite contributions to an online collection that honors his legacy in global health, human rights, equality and dignity. We welcome personal reflections, comments on Paul’s work and writing, and commentaries on the ways in which Paul shaped global health. Essays are encouraged that look to the future and anticipate Paul’s legacy in promoting health and human rights.…

Continue reading “Inviting Contributions on the Theme of “Paul Farmer’s Legacy””

Joseph J. Amon and Carmel Williams On February 21, 2022, the Health and Human Rights Journal Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Paul Farmer, MD PhD, died in his sleep while working in Rwanda. In addition to his role at the Journal which he had held since 2008, Paul was Kolokotrones University Professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, chief of the Division of Global…

Continue reading “In Memory of Paul Farmer who Believed the Future Could be Different”

Yazid Barhoush On March 25th, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic escalated, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for governments to “not forget those behind bars” and “act quickly to reduce the number of people in detention”.[1] She urged governments and authorities to reduce the number of people in detention and explicitly called on governments to release individuals detained without sufficient legal basis. In April, the Center for…

Continue reading “Forgotten Behind Bars: COVID-19 and Palestinian Prisoners Detained in Israel”

Volume 23/2, December 2021, pp. 75-59  |  PDF Carmel Williams and Gillian MacNaughton This special section on health rights and the urgency of the climate crisis could not be more timely. The world came together in Glasgow at the COP26 summit last month to try to avert the global disaster that will result if carbon emissions are not cut sufficiently or with enough haste. But in this matter, the summit…

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Timothy Fish Hodgson, Roojin Habibi, Benjamin Mason Meier, Sharifah Sekalala, Ian Seiderman, Tomaso Falchetta, Thomas Schwarz, Letta Tayler, Sean Tait, Gerald Staberock, and Sara (Meg) Davis  The World Health Assembly (WHA) will be holding a special session in November 2021 “dedicated to considering the benefits of developing” a pandemic treaty.[1] This session will build upon the efforts of the Working Group on Strengthening WHO Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies (WGPR) to…

Continue reading “Human Rights Must Guide a Pandemic Treaty”

News UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has called on states to take bold actions to give prompt and real effect to the right to a healthy environment, following a UN Human Rights Council’s landmark decision to recognise a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. The Human Rights Council also increased its focus on the human rights impacts of climate change by establishing a Special…

Continue reading “A Healthy Environment Becomes a Human Right “

A. Kayum Ahmed, Achal Prabhala, Julia Greenberg, Ames Dhai, and Usuf Chikte Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) decision to export COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in South Africa and India to Europe, ahead of supplying both countries or their respective continents, contradicts the company’s publicly declared commitment to widening access to health care and to human rights. Given that less than 2% of Africans and about 15% of Indians are fully vaccinated, compared…

Continue reading “Johnson & Johnson, Vaccine Apartheid, and Human Rights”

Lori Hanson In Lies, Damned Lies, and “Official Statistics” authors Maria Gargiulo and Megan Price offer an important reminder of the inherent difficulty and potential danger in collecting data and providing information to the public during a pandemic, using examples from both authoritarian right-wing and authoritarian ‘left’ regimes in Latin America. They propose similarities to the work of collecting data in conflict situations. The story behind at least one of…

Continue reading “Letter to the Editor: The Nicaragua Example”