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How Drug Control Policy and Practice Undermine Access to Controlled Medicines

Naomi Burke-Shyne, Joanne Csete, Duncan Wilson, Edward Fox, Daniel Wolfe, and Jennifer J. K. Rasanathan Abstract  Drug conventions serve as the cornerstone for domestic drug laws and impose a dual obligation upon states to prevent the misuse of controlled substances while ensuring their adequate availability for medical and scientific purposes. Despite the mandate that these obligations be enforced equally, the dominant paradigm enshrined in the drug conventions is an enforcement-heavy…

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Drug Policies and Indigenous Peoples

Julian Burger and Mary Kapron Abstract This paper identifies the principal concerns of indigenous peoples with regard to current international treaties on certain psychoactive substances and policies to control and eradicate their production, trafficking, and sale. Indigenous peoples have a specific interest in the issue since their traditional lands have become integrated over time into the large-scale production of coca, opium poppy, and cannabis crops, in response to high demand…

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Human Rights in the World Health Organization: Views of the Director-General Candidates

At this year’s World Health Assembly (May 22–31, 2017), member states will vote for a new Director-General to lead the World Health Organization (WHO) over the next five years. At this critically important time in global health—as the world looks to WHO for leadership in the face of globalized pandemics, health insecurity, mass population displacement and protracted humanitarian crises, climate change, and the looming threat of anti-microbial resistance—we asked each…

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Letter to the Editor: Human Rights, TB, Legislation and Jurisprudence

O. B. K. Dingake People with tuberculosis (TB) experience infringements of their human rights on a daily basis. In far too many cases, they lack access to effective testing and treatment, face discrimination in employment and health care settings, and are unnecessarily detained and isolated against their will. Yet, even as TB has surpassed HIV as the top infectious disease killer in the world and the global threat from multidrug-resistant…

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The Child’s Right to Protection From Drugs: Understanding History to Move Forward

Damon Barrett Introduction The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stands alone among the core UN human rights treaties in setting out a human right to protection from drugs. Article 33 provides that “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties,…

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The Case for International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Control

Rick Lines, Richard Elliott, Julie Hannah, Rebecca Schleifer, Tenu Avafia, and Damon Barrett This special section of Health and Human Rights Journal examines some of the many ways in which international and domestic drug control laws engage human rights and create an environment of enhanced human rights risk. In this edition, the authors address specific human rights issues such as the right to the highest attainable standard of health (including…

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UNstoppable: How Advocates Persevered in the Fight for Justice for Haitian Cholera Victims

Adam Houston In 2016, December 1st—already an occasion to highlight the importance of health and human rights as World AIDS Day—took on new significance as a landmark in one of the highest-profile health and human rights cases of the 21st century. This was the day that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon finally issued an apology on behalf of the organization for its role in causing the Haitian cholera epidemic that has…

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The Mental Health of Children and Parents Detained on Christmas Island: Secondary Analysis of an Australian Human Rights Commission Data Set

Sarah Mares Abstract This paper describes secondary analysis of previously unreported data collected during the 2014 Australian Human Rights Commission Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. The aim was to examine the mental health of asylum-seeking parents and children during prolonged immigration detention and to consider the human rights implications of the findings. The average period of detention was seven months. Data includes 166 Kessler 10 Scales (K10) and 70…

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The Mental Health of Children and Parents Detained on Christmas Island: Secondary Analysis of an Australian Human Rights Commission Data Set

Sarah Mares Abstract This paper describes secondary analysis of previously unreported data collected during the 2014 Australian Human Rights Commission Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. The aim was to examine the mental health of asylum-seeking parents and children during prolonged immigration detention and to consider the human rights implications of the findings. The average period of detention was seven months. Data includes 166 Kessler 10 Scales (K10) and 70…

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Interpreting the International Right to Health in a Human Rights-Based Approach to Health

Paul Hunt Abstract This article tracks the shifting place of the international right to health, and human rights-based approaches to health, in the scholarly literature and United Nations (UN). From 1993 to 1994, the focus began to move from the right to health toward human rights-based approaches to health, including human rights guidance adopted by UN agencies in relation to specific health issues. There is a compelling case for a…

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