Health and Human Rights News
News to 20 February 2026
WHO Human Rights Unit shut down
The World Health Organization’s Policy, Law and Human Rights Unit was shut down this week with its leaders, Natalie Drew Bold and Michelle Funk, announcing their departure from WHO. The closure follows ‘considerable restructuring’ attributed to the withdrawal of the United States from WHO. The departing team stressed the continuing importance of resources generated by their work, including the QualityRights initiative. Resources related to mental health, substance use, disability, general health, human rights and development are still available at WHO, as well as at MiNDBank, a global online platform.
See also: WHO’s QualityRights Initiative: Transforming Services and Promoting Rights in Mental Health, Michelle Funk and Natalie Drew Bold, Volume 22/1, June 2020
UN nears financial collapse
Over the last year, the UN human rights budget has been slashed, leaving inadequate funding for key services, including lifesaving monitoring missions. Human Rights Watch urges all states to pay their dues, saying “In this moment of crisis, states committed to human rights, multilateralism and the rule of law need to invest both politically and financially in the system. Failing to do so risks bringing the entire UN human rights protection system crashing down, with all that it entails for the protection of people’s rights around the world.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the UN faces collapse by the summer unless member states pay their dues.
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
CEDAW demands funding
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has expressed serious concern about the ramifications of the current financial crisis on its work defending the rights of women and girls worldwide. The committee had to cancel one of its three annual meetings in 2025, at a time of growing gender backlash worldwide, commenting “We call on governments, civil society organizations, women’s and girls’ rights advocates, and concerned citizens–to do everything within their power to ensure that the CEDAW Committee can continue its essential work.”
See also: FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Are Women’s Rights Human Rights Once and for All? Flavia Bustreo, Revati Phalkey, Rajat Khosla, and Kate Gilmore, 7 July 2025
Trump blocks climate change action
President Trump announced this week he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet, reported the New York Times. This will remove in limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases. Democrats and environmental leaders immediately responded saying they would take legal action to fight, with Governor Gavin Newsom of California stating, “If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities nationwide.”
State Department sued over PEPFAR cuts and data blackout
Physicians for Human Rights and the Council for Global Equality have filed a lawsuit against the US Department of State over the department’s refusal to report critical data on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and future plans. “We filed this lawsuit to seek transparency: the administration’s PEPFAR data blackout withholds information the public, health providers, and affected communities need to track the HIV epidemic and prevent avoidable illness and death, obscuring the true human cost of these policy decisions.”
See also: AIDS 2024: Politics and Human Rights, Joseph J. Amon, July 2024; AIDS 2024: HIV is Inherently Political, Joseph J. Amon, July 2024.
UNAIDS calls on Africa to drive global response
UNAIDS emphasized the importance of unity and continuing commitment to the HIV response, calling on African leaders to keep HIV on the political agenda at the 39th African Union summit. “AIDS is not over in Africa and continued African leadership is essential,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “Now is the moment to raise ambition, safeguard our gains and ensure Africa drives the global agenda for a sustainable and sovereign health future.”
Most maternal deaths occur in conflict zones
Pregnant people living in fragile and conflict-affected countries are more likely to die from preventable maternal causes. A World Health Organization technical brief explains the risks, stating “in 2023 alone, an estimated 160 000 women died from preventable maternal causes in fragile and conflict-affected settings, that is 6 in 10 maternal deaths worldwide, despite these countries accounting for only around one in ten of global live births.” It outlines innovative approaches developed to support safe pregnancies and births amidst disruption.
See also: Accountability for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Humanitarian and Disaster Situations: Case Studies from Uganda, Bangladesh, and Nepal, Grady Arnott, Beatrice Odallo, Teddy Nakubulwa, Fazila Banu Lily, and Shankar Singh Dhami Vol 27/2, 2025
Duterte to face ICC
Former-President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines faces the first International Criminal Court next week on charges related to his bloody ‘war on drugs’. Human Rights Watch reports that human rights groups contend as many as 30,000 people were killed in the “war on drugs,” most of them impoverished people in urban areas. “Many children were among those killed or who suffered from the harmful consequences of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.”
Amnesty urges end to drug-related mandatory executions in Singapore
Amnesty International is calling for the abolition of the death penalty in Singapore, after a Malaysian man was executed per a mandatory death penalty for a drug-related offence. “The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences violates international human rights law and standards, which restrict its use to the ‘most serious crimes’…Several UN bodies, including the International Narcotics Control Board, have repeatedly clarified that drug-related offences do not meet this threshold.”
Libya eliminates trachoma
Libya has officially eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, and is the 10th nation in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to have eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease, reports the World Health Organization. “Libya’s achievement is particularly notable given years of political instability and humanitarian challenges … Despite these pressures, the national trachoma elimination programme successfully integrated surveillance, expanded access to surgical care, built capacity among eye health workers and partnered with national and international stakeholders.”
Russia continues attacks on health in Ukraine
Russia’s continued attacks on healthcare in Ukraine are systematic and seek to destroy the health and wellbeing of Ukrainian civilians, claims Physicians for Human Rights. They have documented 2,591 attacks on hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and health workers since February 2022. “The impact of these attacks extends far beyond immediate damage, creating cumulative reverberating effects that weaken health systems over time and disproportionately harm civilians who depend on stable access to care.”
Attacks on civilians in Sudan likely war crimes
High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk again urged ceasefire talks in Sudan after drone strikes killed more than 50 people in two days this week. “These latest killings are yet another reminder of the devastating consequences on civilians of the escalating use of drone warfare in Sudan,” said Türk. “They also perpetuate a pattern that we have seen time and again in this conflict of attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure, including markets, health facilities and schools.” The UN Human Rights Office released a report on the Rapid Support Forces’ capture of El Fasher which found their attacks likely amount to war crimes.
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