Hostname: page-component-6d856f89d9-76ns8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T06:56:24.101Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Strengthening Human Rights in Global Health Law: Lessons from the COVID-19 Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

Judith Bueno de Mesquita ,
Anuj Kapilashrami  and
Benjamin Mason Meier
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While human rights law has evolved to provide guidance to governments in realizing human rights in public health emergencies, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the foundations of human rights in global health governance. Public health responses to the pandemic have undermined international human rights obligations to realize (1) the rights to health and life, (2) human rights that underlie public health, and (3) international assistance and cooperation. As governments prepare for revisions of global health law, new opportunities are presented to harmonize global health law and human rights law, strengthening rights-based governance to respond to future threats.

Keywords

Human RightsGlobal HealthCOVID-19World Health OrganizationUnited Nations
Type
Columns: Global Health Law
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 49 , Issue 2: Race and Ethnicity in 21st Century Health Care , Summer 2021 , pp. 328 - 331
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s)

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

About This Column

Lawrence O. Gostin and Benjamin Mason Meier serve as the section editors for Global Health Law. Professor Gostin is University Professor at Georgetown University and the Founding Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Director of the World Health Organization Center on National and Global Health Law. Professor Meier is a Professor of Global Health Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. This column features timely analyses and perspectives on law, policy, and justice in global health.

References

Charter of the United Nations (San Francisco: United Nations, 1945).Google Scholar
Gostin, L. O. et al., “70 Years of Human Rights in Global Health: Drawing on a Contentious Past to Secure a Hopeful Future,” The Lancet 392, no. 10165 (December 22, 2018): 2731–35, available at <https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32997-0> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gostin, L. O., Habibi, R., and Meier, B. M., “Has Global Health Law Risen to Meet the COVID-19 Challenge? Revisiting the International Health Regulations to Prepare for Future Threats,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 48, no. 2 (2020): 376–381, available at <https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110520935354> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guterres, A., “The World Faces a Pandemic of Human Rights Abuses in the Wake of Covid-19,” The Guardian, February 22, 2021, available at < http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/22/world-faces-pandemic-human-rights-abuses-covid-19-antonio-guterres> (last visited April 27, 2021).Google Scholar
UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (New York: United Nations, 1966); UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 14 on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health (article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), Geneva: United Nations; 2000, U.N Doc. E/C.12/2000/1.Google Scholar
Puras, D. et al., “The Right to Health Must Guide Responses to COVID-19,” The Lancet 395, no. 10241 (2020): 1888–1890, available at < https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31255-1> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Id.Google Scholar
United Nations, UN Commission on Human Rights, The Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Geneva: United Nations; Sept 28, 1984, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1985/4.Google Scholar
Sekalala, S. et al., “Health and Human Rights Are Inextricably Linked in the COVID-19 Response,” BMJ Global Health 5, no. 9 (September 1, 2020): e003359, available at < https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003359> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kapilashrami, A. et al., The State of the World’s Human Rights (Lon-don: Amnesty Int ernat i onal, 2021), available at <https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL1032022021ENGLISH.PDF> (last visited April 27, 2021).Google Scholar
UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: United Nations, 1948); UN General Assembly, supra note 5, art. 2.1.Google Scholar
UN Committee on Economic and Social and Cultural Rights, “Statement on the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” April 17, 2020, available at <http://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3856957> (last visited April 27, 2021).+(last+visited+April+27,+2021).>Google Scholar
Gostin, L. O., Karim, S. A., and Meier, B. M., “Facilitating Access to a COVID-19 Vaccine through Global Health Law,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 48, no. 3 (2020): 622–626, available at <https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110520958892> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meier, B. M. and Gostin, L. O., Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habibi, R. et al., “Harmonizing Global Health Law and Human Rights Law to Develop Rights-Based Approaches to Global Health Emer-gencies,” International Commission of Jurists (blog), February 24, 2021, available at <https://www.icj.org/harmonizing-global-health-law-and-human-rights-law-to-develop-rights-based-approaches-to-global-health-emergencies> (last visited April 27, 2021).Google Scholar
Meier, B. M., Huffstetler, H. E., and Habibi, R., “Human Rights Must Be Central to the International Health Regu-lations,” Health and Human Rights Journal (blog), August 26, 2020, available at <https://www.hhrjournal.org/2020/08/human-rights-must-be-central-to-the-international-health-regulations/> (last visited April 27, 2021).Google Scholar
World Health Organization, “Address-ing Human Rights as Key to the COVID-19 Response,” available at <https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/addressing-human-rights-as-key-to-the-covid-19-re-sponse.> (last visited April 11, 2021).+(last+visited+April+11,+2021).>Google Scholar
World Health Organization, “Agree-ment Signed between WHO and UN Human Rights Agency to Advance Work on Health and Human Rights,” WHO (World Health Organization), available at <http://www.who.int/life-course/news/who-unhcr-agreement-on-health-and-human-rights/en/> (last visited April 11, 2021).+(last+visited+April+11,+2021).>Google Scholar
de Mesquita, J. Bueno et al., “Moni-toring the Sustainable Development Goals through Human Rights Accountability Reviews,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 96, no. 9 (2018): 627–633, available at <https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.204412> (last visited April 27, 2021); Kothari, M., “The UN’s Universal Periodic Review Must Respond to COVID-19,” Blog, Open-GlobalRights, January 26, 2021, available at <https://www.openglobalrights.org/the-un-universal-periodic-review-must-respond-to-covid/> (last visited April 27, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar