Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 28 June 2025
UN Expert calls health care workers defenders of the right to health…
In her fifth report to the Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur Tlaleng Mofokeng focuses on health workers as the protectors of the right to health. She elaborates on their health, mental well-being, safety, remuneration and fairness in the workplace so that they can deliver quality healthcare services. The report highlights specific situations in which health and care workers protect their patients’ rights to health and all rights, including sexual and reproductive health rights, as well the right of patients facing violence, whether in their private lives or State-inflicted, and those in conflict and crisis situations.
See also:
HHR has a resources page with links to all UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health reports from 2002 to the present
… and addresses Doctors against Genocide
Dr. Mofokeng told Doctors against Genocide in a conference this week that healthcare workers are grappling with a crisis that is both clinical and moral, a situation Doctors Against Genocide calls being ‘sick from genocide’. She said, “The conditions in Gaza are incompatible with the realization of the right to life and dignity. The attacks, harassment, killings of hundreds of healthcare workers, destructions of health facilities, humanitarian organizations, continue to catapult this imperialist violence to proportions yet to be fully quantified, if at all possible.”
See also:
Freedom Dreaming: On “Emerging Frameworks of Health and Human Rights”, Tlaleng Mofokeng 26/1, June 2024
Türk: Gender-based violence increasing but aid is decreasing
High Commissioner of Human Rights Volker Türk advised the Human Rights Council that gender-based violence during and following conflicts is increasing. He noted the devastating consequences of recent cuts to humanitarian aid, restricting lifesaving health and support services for survivors of such violence. “Failure to provide medical care – including for genital mutilations, sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy – has immense long-term impact.”
See also:
Interpreting International Humanitarian Law to Guarantee Abortion and Other Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Armed Conflict, Christina Zampas, Rebecca Brown, and Onyema Afulukwe, Vol 26/1, June 2024
Reclaiming Sexual and Reproductive Rights Through a Decolonial Lens, Tlaleng Mofokeng, Vol 27/1, June 2025
UN Expert report interprets consent and sex-based violence
Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has examined the concept of consent in her report to the Human Rights Council. The report observes variations across interpretations of consent, including “informed consent” in the medical field, “legal capacity to consent” in contract law, and the notions of consent in criminal and human rights law. She said this report is critical for understanding and applying consent in the context of sex-based violence and the human rights of its victims.
Amnesty International calls EU-Israel Association Agreement timid
Amnesty International has described the European Commission’s review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement as timid, slow, and failing to set out any measures against Israel. “Every day the EU delays meaningful action, is a greenlight for Israel to continue its genocide in the Gaza Strip and unlawful occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Health workers and unions condemn EU inaction against Israel
Healthcare workers and trade unions protested in front of the EU Parliament in Brussels to condemn the inaction of EU authorities over Israel’s repeated attacks on health infrastructure and workers in Gaza. The unions, including health worker unions, called on the EU to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Civil society calls for rights in UN climate talks
More more than 200 civil society organizations are calling for reform of UN climate negotiations, saying they have “systematically failed to deliver climate justice and undermined international law, from marginalizing vulnerable States, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society, to allowing the richest countries and the largest historical polluters to avoid legal obligations and accountability.” Their statement proposes new methods to ensure that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is rights-driven, accountable, and strengthened to successfully address the climate crisis.
See also:
EDITORIAL Health Rights and the Urgency of the Climate Crisis, Carmel Williams and Gillian MacNaughton, Vol 23/2, December 2021.
No water, no right to health
Billions of people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, posing a public health crisis as well as a human rights crisis, said Nada Al-Nashif, Deputy High-Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking to the Human Rights Council this week. In her speech she highlighted the impacts of the climate crisis and socioeconomic disparities in limiting access to these fundamental rights. She outlined three principles intended “to place human rights at the centre of water governance”, calling on governments to uphold human rights obligations and work together to address the management of water resources and ecosystems, as well as emphasizing the need for inclusive and participatory approaches to water management.
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Local Advocates in the United States Make Slow but Steady Progress on Water Affordability, Martha F. Davis, 17 March 2025
WHO warns about tobacco industry tactics
The World Health Organization’s 10th report on the tobacco epidemic warns that industry interference is using new tactics to threaten control measures, while tobacco use is killing over 7 million people each year. It also details the success of the WHO technical package, MPOWER tobacco control measures, noting that “the most striking gains have been in graphic health warnings, one of the key measures under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that make the harms of tobacco impossible to ignore.”
Underinvestment threatens SDGs
The International Conference for Financing for Development will convene for its fourth year next week, marking an opportunity for world leaders to re-commit to Sustainable Development Goals and pledge to take serious steps to achieve them in line with their 2030 target. Amnesty International is calling on nations attending to confront the global crisis head on, as “years of underinvestment by all states mean over 80% of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets are off track.”
Act now to stop increasing drug related executions
On World Drug Day this week 70 organizations issued a joint statement urging the UN office on Drugs and Crime and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to condemn punitive drug policies. There has been a global increase in drug-related executions and recorded death sentences for drug-related offences over recent years, despite being in direct violation of international human rights norms and conventions. “The publication of the World Drug Report, launched by UNODC every year on 26 June, presents a unique opportunity for UNODC to publicly condemn the application of the death penalty for drug-related offences and recommend concrete measures that states that still retain this cruel punishment can implement to align their domestic policies with international human rights law and standards.”
See also:
VIEWPOINT Not Enough Stick? Drug Detention and the Limits of United Nations Norm Setting, Daniel Wolfe and Roxanne Saucier, Vol 24/1, June 2022
The Case for International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Control, Rick Lines, Richard Elliott, Julie Hannah, Rebecca Schleifer, Tenu Avafia, and Damon Barrett, March 2017
US funding cuts stops rollout of new HIV prevention drug
The US Food and Drug Administration’s approval this week of Lenacapavir, a breakthrough drug that provides near-total protection for HIV, was planned to be the start of its roll out across Africa. However, the Trump Administration’s sweeping cuts to international aid means the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, (PEPFAR) is unable to purchase the drug, nor carry out its prevention programs. The main target for the African program is young women. About 300,000 of them were newly infected with the virus last year—half of all new infections worldwide.
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Enforceable Commitments to Global Health Needed to Fulfill Rights, Moses Mulumba, Jessica Oga, Juliana Nantaba, and Ana Lorena Ruano, 2 March 2025
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: The US Administration’s Assault on Global Reproductive Health and Autonomy, Winona Xu, 13 February 2025
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Trump’s Banned Words and Disastrous Health Policies, Joseph J. Amon, 3 February 2025
UK plan threatens the rights of people with disabilities
Draft legislation in the United Kingdom proposing a reform of disability benefits will have a devastating impact on people’s rights, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The bill proposes freezing, until 2030, the amount of additional health-related support for people with qualifying health conditions or disabilities as part of their Universal Credit payments, the UK’s main social security program. HRW warns that budget savings must not come at the cost of rights and dignity of individuals with disabilities.
Record displacement in Haiti as violence escalates
Violence in Haiti has resulted in nearly 1.3 million internally displaced people, according to an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report. Makeshift displacement sites and humanitarian response efforts across the country are overwhelmed by the numbers, with thousands now facing famine and ongoing funding shortfalls are restricting the UN’s efforts to contain intensifying violence. Human Rights Watch has called on the UN Security Council to increase funding and notes that 55% of the displaced are women and girls who are facing severe shortages of food, water, health care, and other essential services.
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