Hannah van Kolfschooten and Angela Hefti All over the world, individuals are taking governments to court for their role in climate change, or rather, their “climate inaction”. The 2022 Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation Policy Report shows that strategic litigation cases to enforce climate laws and policies have doubled since 2015. On 29 March 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) heard its first…
It Is Time to Abolish the Death Penalty for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Gautam Gulati and Brendan D. Kelly On 5 October 2021, Ernest L. Johnson, a 61-year-old man, was executed in Missouri, United States. Johnson’s crime was heinous: in 1994 he killed three people in a convenience store. No words can describe the consequences of such an act: three lives lost, many more lives shattered, and psychological wounds that endure to this day. But Johnson had fetal alcohol syndrome and an…
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Breakthrough on Loss and Damage Funding at COP27: A Need to Incorporate Human Rights Principles
A. Karim Ahmed It is not entirely clear what finally broke the logjam on loss and damage funding at the COP27 meeting held in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (November 6-18, 2022). Was it the threat made by European Union countries to walk away from the meeting or the isolation felt by the United States delegation in holding to their hard stance on loss and damage taken…
Power, Privacy, and the People at the AIDS 2022 Conference
Sara (Meg) Davis The International AIDS Conference is a biennial litmus test for the global HIV response: a moment to celebrate progress in research and practice, forge new connections and reconnect with allies. Human rights has long been a central topic, both on the formal program and in the Global Village where civil society gathers. This year at AIDS 2022 in Montreal, Canada, many of the human rights track sessions…
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Roe Overturned: Lessons from Latin America
Andrés Constantin and Maia Levy Daniel A few years ago, Belén ended up in jail after being admitted to a hospital in Argentina for suffering a miscarriage.[1] Within hours, she was surrounded by the police and accused of having induced an abortion, which was illegal. Belén spent 29 months in preventive detention and was sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide due to Argentina’s strict abortion laws at…
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Delayed Justice over Forced Sterilization of a Honduran Woman Living with HIV
Rosa González and Tamil Kendall In May 2022, the President of Chile made a historic public apology to Francisca, a woman living with HIV who was sterilized without her consent. The apology came 20 years after Francisca’s forced sterilization and followed a decade of litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.[1] Forced and coerced sterilization is recognized as a human rights violation under international law.[2] In 2021, the Executive…
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Returning to a Pre-Roe World Threatens More than Abortion Rights
Sarthak Gupta and Pruthvirajsinh Zala In May 2022, an initial draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked forewarning an overturn of the decision in Roe v. Wade. Justice Alito writes in the draft opinion, that the rationale of Roe was egregiously wrong from the beginning, although SCOTUS in a press release said…
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Children Arriving in the United States Need Strong Safeguards
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…
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Moving Beyond Siloes: Urgent Need for an Integrated Approach to Children’s Rights and Well-Being
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…
Inviting Contributions on the Theme of “Paul Farmer’s Legacy”
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.…
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