Category: Blog

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…

Continue reading “EDITORIAL Health Rights and the Urgency of the Climate Crisis”

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”

Geeta Moni  Tencent’s WeChat social media network has blocked dozens of LGBTQIA+ university student profiles, saying that some had broken internet information guidelines, prompting worries of a crackdown on gay content online. The social media site has deactivated accounts linked to the LGBTQIA+ community and university-based LGBTQIA+ groups. In response to the termination of their accounts, Fudan University’s Zhihe Society said “Our activities will not stop due to the closure. On the…

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Alice Rothchild Journals in the medical, social, and political sciences have begun to highlight an appreciation of structural racism, and the personal and public health costs of bigotry and chronic stress. For oppressed populations, understanding these forces is critical to the establishment of basic human rights, including the right to health in its broadest sense: access to health services, clean water, sanitation, nutrition, housing, education, employment, and freedom of movement.…

Continue reading “Ghosting Palestine: Hiding Health and Human Rights Violations”

By Caroline Kinsella Maternal and newborn deaths must not be accepted as inevitable consequences of an armed conflict, natural disaster, or disease outbreak. This World Refugee Day, it is crucial that we listen to the displaced women and girls around the world demanding respectful and quality care in humanitarian settings. UNFPA anticipates that In the next three months more than 500 babies will be born to refugee mothers from Ethiopia’s…

Continue reading “Respectful Care for Women and Newborns in Crisis Settings: A Human Right”

Roojin Habibi, Tim Fish Hodgson, Benjamin Mason Meier, Ian Seiderman, and Steven Hoffman The COVID-19 pandemic unequivocally reveals that human rights, the rule of law, democratic institutions and global solidarity are essential to effective public health emergency preparedness and response. Reiterated throughout discussions in the World Health Assembly (WHA) between 24 and 31 May 2021, there is now clear global consensus on the need to strengthen international legal standards to…

Continue reading “Reshaping Global Health Law in the Wake of COVID-19 to Uphold Human Rights”