This collection serves as an introduction to the new and emerging field of health and human rights. It covers such timely subjects as cleansing, world population control, women's reproductive choices, AIDS and HIV.
This anthology of articles collected by a cast of award-winning scholars in the field of public health illustrates that promoting and protecting human rights is fundamental to promoting and protecting health. New issues covered in this volume include: emerging technologies; family and health; responding to violence; and methods and strategies.
“A broad-ranging, insightful analysis of the complex practical and ethical issues involved in global health.”—Kirkus Reviews Few topics in human rights have inspired as much debate as the right to health. Proponents would enshrine it as a fundamental right on a par with freedom of speech and freedom from torture. Detractors suggest that the movement constitutes an impractical over-reach. Jonathan Wolff cuts through the ideological stalemate to explore both views. In an accessible, persuasive voice, he explores the philosophical underpinnings of the idea of a human right, assesses whether health meets those criteria, and identifies the political and cultural realities we face in attempts to improve the health of citizens in wildly different regions. Wolff ultimately finds that there is a path forward for proponents of the right to health, but to succeed they must embrace certain intellectual and practical changes. The Human Right to Health is a powerful and important contribution to the discourse on global health.
Human rights are essential to global health, yet rising threats in an increasingly divided world are challenging the progressive evolution of health-related human rights. It is necessary to empower a new generation of scholars, advocates, and practitioners to sustain the global commitment to universal rights in public health. Looking to the next generation to face the struggles ahead, this book provides a detailed understanding of the evolving relationship between global health and human rights, laying a human rights foundation for the advancement of transformative health policies, programs, and practices. International human rights law has been repeatedly shown to advance health and wellbeing - empowering communities and fostering accountability for realizing the highest attainable standard of health. This book provides a compelling examination of international human rights as essential for advancing public health. It demonstrates how human rights strengthens human autonomy and dignity, while placing clear responsibilities on government to safeguard the public's health and safety. Bringing together leading academics in the field of health and human rights, this volume: (1) explains the norms and principles that define the field, (2) examines the methods and tools for implementing human rights to promote health, (3) applies essential human rights to leading public health threats, and (4) analyzes rising human rights challenges in a rapidly globalizing world. This foundational text shows why interdisciplinary scholarship and action are essential for health-related human rights, placing human rights at the center of public health and securing a future of global health with justice.
This book deals with various facets of the human right to health: its normative profile as a universal right, current political and legal conflicts and contextualized implementation in different healthcare systems. The authors come from different countries and disciplines - law, political science, ethics, medicine etc. - and bring together a broad variety of academic and practical perspectives. The volume contains selected contributions of the international conference "The Right to Health - an Empty Promise?" held in September 2015 in Berlin and organized by the Emerging Field Initiative Project "Human Rights in Healthcare" (University of Erlangen-Nürnberg).
Women's Global Health and Human Rights serves as an overview of the challenges faced by women in different regions of the world. Ideal as a tool for both professionals and students, this book discusses the similarities and differences in health and human rights challenges that are faced by women globally. Best practices and success stories are also included in this timely and important text. Major Topics include: „X Globalization „X Gender Based Terrorism and Violence „X Cultural Practices „X Health Problems „X Progress and Challenges
Does human rights law work? This book engages in this heated debate through a detailed analysis of thirty years of the right to health - perhaps the most complex human right - in Brazil. Are Brazilians better off three decades after the enactment of the right to health in the 1988 Constitution? Has the flurry of litigation experienced in Brazil helped or harmed the majority of the population? This book offers an in-depth analysis of these complex and controversial questions grounded on a wealth of empirical data. The book covers the history of the recognition of health as a human right in the 1988 Constitution through the Sanitary Movement's campaign and the subsequent three decades of what Ferraz calls the politics and judicialization of health. It challenges positions of both optimists and sceptics of human rights law and will be of interest to those looking for a more nuanced analysis.
Health and Human Rights in a Changing World is a comprehensive and contemporary collection of readings and original material examining health and human rights from a global perspective. Editors Grodin, Tarantola, Annas, and Gruskin are well-known for their previous two volumes (published by Routledge) on this increasingly important subject to the global community. The editors have contextualized each of the five sections with foundational essays; each reading concludes with discussion topics, questions, and suggested readings. This book also includes Points of View sections—originally written perspectives by important authors in the field. Section I is a Health and Human Rights Overview that lays out the essential knowledge base and provides the foundation for the following sections. Section II brings in notions of concepts, methods, and governance framing the application of health and human rights, in particular the Human Rights-based Approaches to Health. Section III sheds light on issues of heightened vulnerability and special protection, stressing that the health and human rights record of any nation, any community, is determined by what is being done and not done about those who are most in need. Section IV focuses on addressing system failures where health and human rights issues have been documented, recognized, even at times proclaimed as priorities, and yet insufficiently attended to as a result of State denial, unwillingness, or incapacity. Section V examines the relevance of the health and human rights paradigm to a changing world, underscoring contemporary global challenges and responses. Finally, a Concluding Note brings together the key themes of this set of articles and attempts to project a vision of the future.
Institutions matter for the advancement of human rights in global health. Given the dramatic development of human rights under international law and the parallel proliferation of global institutions for public health, there arises an imperative to understand the implementation of human rights through global health governance. This volume examines the evolving relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, studying an expansive set of health challenges through a multi-sectoral array of global organizations. To analyze the structural determinants of rights-based governance, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that implement human rights in ways that influence public health in a globalizing world. This volume brings together leading health and human rights scholars and practitioners from academia, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system. They explore the foundations of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance, the mandate of the World Health Organization to pursue a human rights-based approach to health, the role of inter-governmental organizations across a range of health-related human rights, the influence of rights-based economic governance on public health, and the focus on global health among institutions of human rights governance. Contributing chapters each map the distinct human rights efforts within a specific institution of global governance for health. Through the comparative institutional analysis in this volume, the contributing authors examine institutional dynamics to operationalize human rights in organizational policies, programs, and practices and assess institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming for global health advancement.
People with mental disorders often suffer the worst conditions of life.This book is the first comprehensive survey of the mental health/human rights relationship. It examines the relationships and histories of mental health and human rights, and their interconnections with law, culture, ethnicity, class, economics, biology, and stigma.