Viewpoints

Chris Beyrer Impunity: exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action. A noun. (Oxford English Dictionary, 2019). There has perhaps always been a greater burden of unpunished human rights violations than punished…

Benjamin Mason Meier, Margherita Marianna Cinà, and Lawrence O. Gostin Institutions of global health governance are central to the advancement of health and human rights. Over the past 25 years, there has arisen an effort to formalize human rights…

Damon Barrett, Julie Hannah, and Rick Lines The 25th anniversary of Health and Human Rights comes at an interesting time in international drug policy. Not long ago, references to human rights could be, and were, easily vetoed from draft UN drug policy…

Lawrence O. Gostin, Hanna Huffstetler, and Benjamin Mason Meier The health and human rights movement has united the world to realize health-related human rights. Yet, the current age of populist nationalism has challenged long-held assumptions about…

Dainius Pūras  I am taking the opportunity presented by this series of reflections on the right to health to comment on my experiences as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, especially as I am now entering the final year of this…

Alicia Ely Yamin Dear Young and Future Leaders in Struggles for Health Rights and Social Justice: The world has changed tremendously in the almost 25 years since I had the privilege of studying under the late Dr. Jonathan Mann at what is now the…

Gillian MacNaughton Looking back over the past 25 years, the right to health has matured in healthy ways. It is deeper, broader and considerably more complex. From a narrow focus on freedoms, such as nondiscrimination and privacy, the right to health…

Rajat Khosla Reflecting on the 25th anniversary of Health and Human Rights (HHRJ) is in a way a reflection on the history of health and human rights. It is an opportunity to pause and reflect on past and present challenges. On the one hand, human…

Leonard Rubenstein The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes no reference to war except to assert that respect for human rights is a means of preventing it. The lack of attention is not surprising given that in the post-World War II period the…

Sofia Gruskin When we launched the Health & Human Rights Journal 25 years ago it was a heady time for health and human rights conceptually, empirically, and politically. I had just moved to Boston to begin working with Jonathan Mann and Daniel…