Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Human Rights-Based Approaches of Legislation, Education, and Community Empowerment

Beth D. Williams-Breault Abstract Female genital mutilation/cutting is a form of violence against women and girls. It includes all procedures that involve the partial or total removal of external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It is estimated that over 200 million girls and women worldwide have suffered the effects of this practice and that approximately 3.6 million girls and women are at risk…

Child Labor in Global Tobacco Production: A Human Rights Approach to an Enduring Dilemma

Athena K. Ramos Abstract Tobacco production is a multi-billion-dollar global industry. Unfortunately, the cultivation of tobacco engages the labor of children throughout the world in extremely dangerous environments, which has both immediate and long-term consequences for children and society. This paper explores the human rights concerns associated with child labor in tobacco production by highlighting three countries—the United States, Kazakhstan, and Malawi—and examines the impact that the United Nations Convention…

Intersex Variations, Human Rights, and the International Classification of Diseases

Morgan Carpenter Abstract Over time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reviewed and removed pathologizing classifications and codes associated with sexual and gender minorities from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). However, classifications associated with intersex variations, congenital variations in sex characteristics or differences of sex development, remain pathologized. The ICD-11 introduces additional and pathologizing normative language to describe these as “disorders of sex development.” Current materials in the ICD-11…

Missing: Where Are the Migrants in Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plans?

Kolitha Wickramage, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric Friedman, Phusit Prakongsai, Rapeepong Suphanchaimat, Charles Hui, Patrick Duigan, Eliana Barragan, and David R. Harper Background Influenza pandemics are perennial global health security threats, with novel and seasonal influenza affecting a large proportion of the world’s population, causing enormous economic and social destruction. Novel viruses such as influenza A(H7N9) continue to emerge, posing zoonotic and potential pandemic threats.[1] Many countries have developed pandemic influenza…

A Comparison of Health Achievements in Rwanda and Burundi

Hari S. Iyer, Adanna Chukwuma, Jean Claude Mugunga, Anatole Manzi, Melino Ndayizigiye, and Sudhir Anand Abstract         Strong primary health care systems are essential for implementing universal health coverage and fulfilling health rights entitlements, but disagreement exists over how best to create them. Comparing countries with similar histories, lifestyle practices, and geography but divergent health outcomes can yield insights into possible mechanisms for improvement. Rwanda and Burundi are two such countries.…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…