Category: Blog

Kony 2012, the much-discussed short film about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, has received more than 100 million views in one week, making it the most viral video of all time. The film, created by Jason Russell and released by American charity Invisible Children, aims to increase awareness of Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), responsible for mass atrocities in Uganda since 1987, including wide-scale abduction of children for sexual…

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By Jay Lemery, MD The Council on Foreign Relations has just released an educational reference on the history and current state of human rights protection worldwide. Part of the Global Governance Monitor series, the interactive online guide tracks the progression of human rights around the world and offers a historical perspective on the current human rights regime. Through videos, graphic timelines, matrices, and interactive maps, the guide outlines the evolution…

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UNICEF released The State of the World’s Children 2012 last week, reporting on the serious risks children and pregnant women face in our rapidly urbanizing world. While cities historically offer greater access to infrastructure like schools, clinics, and other basic services, the report notes that urban growth rates are outpacing the infrastructure development needed to provide for city residents. There are problems, too, with data reporting on poor urban communities: …

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John Tobin Oxford University Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0199603299 330 pages $140 Tobin offers readers a thorough and necessary discussion of the current meanings and legal obligations that stem from the global responsibility to “respect, protect, and fulfill” one’s right to health. He artfully explains the evolution of the concept of health as a human right in historical, theoretical, and philosophical terms in order to describe its nature and understand its…

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By Ronald Pies, MD As a psychiatric physician for nearly thirty years, I am always surprised when I hear politicians claim that the U.S. health care system is “the best in the world.” To be sure, we are among the most advanced nations when it comes to medical technology, and we are second to none when it comes to the dedication of our doctors, nurses, and allied professionals. But if…

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A new UN study reveals that a girl aged 1-5 is 75% more likely to die than a boy in India, marking the world’s most extreme gender disparity concerning child mortality. Infant and child mortality has been on the decline in recent years, with a large portion of the world seeing young girls with higher rates of survival than young boys. This can be attributable to the biological advantages that…

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The Health Rights of Women and Children Program at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, is pleased to announce application and scholarship information for the Course on Health Rights Litigation. This one-week intensive course is offered as part of the Global School on the Enforcement of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Global School). The course offers participants an opportunity to develop specialist-level knowledge in relation to…

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In a February 1 New York Times op-ed, Partners in Health co-founder and Health and Human Rights editor-in-chief Paul Farmer outlines the importance of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Read the op-ed here. Photo: By DFID – UK Department for International Development (Flickr: Bracing for a short, sharp jab) [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Richard Pierre Claude University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002 (paperback 2011) ISBN 978-0-8122-2192-3 280 pages $24.95 In Science in the Service of Human Rights, Richard Pierre Claude examines the complex, sometimes fraught relationship between scientific progress and political society in order to propose a guiding framework with which to examine the tensions that may arise from this dynamic. Human rights, Claude contends, must be central to the debate over alleged abuses…

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By Rob Yates Virtually all countries are trying to achieve universal health coverage, meaning that their populations use appropriate levels of care without experiencing financial hardship. Governments are likely to come under increasing pressure to accelerate progress towards this goal, especially as the UN General Assembly recognizes the urgency of the topic. As WHO’s World Health Report demonstrates, health financing issues are critical in determining levels of health coverage –…

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