In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV and maternal mortality and morbidity (MMM) are connected in both outcomes and solutions: HIV is the leading cause of maternal death, while prevention of unintended pregnancy and access to contraception are considered two of the most important HIV-related prevention efforts. Both are central to reducing unsafe abortion, another leading cause of maternal death in Africa. A human rights-based framework helps to identify shared structural drivers include gender inequality; gender-based violence (including sexual violence); economic disempowerment; and stigma and discrimination in access to services or opportunities based on gender and HIV. Therefore the authors call for a human rights-based and integrated response to the two health issues. Governments should establish the health-related human rights standards to which all women are entitled and provide remedy for human rights violations related to HIV and maternal mortality and morbidity. No single goal, such as those addressing HIV and MMM, can be achieved without progress on all development goals.
Values, Policies and Rights
Maternal mortality and morbidity (MMM) and HIV represent interlinked challenges arising from common causes, magnifying their respective impacts and producing related consequences. Accordingly, an integrated response will lead to the most effective approach for both, argue the authors of this paper. HIV and MMM are connected in both outcomes and solutions in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is the leading cause of maternal death and prevention of unintended pregnancy and access to contraception have been identified as two of the most important HIV-related prevention efforts. In turn, both are central to reducing unsafe abortion, a major cause of maternal death in Africa. The authors propose that a human rights-based framework will help to identify the shared determinants of MMM and HIV. It should also help to establish the health-related human rights standards to which all women are entitled, as well to outline the indivisible and intersecting human rights principles that inform and guide efforts related to HIV and MMM. The authors point to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a good example of an agreement with quantifiable goals for achieving human rights while emphasising that no single goal can be achieved without progress on all development goals.
This article proposes six action strategies to guide global health researchers to synergistically target women's health outcomes in the context of improving their right to freedom, equity, and equality of opportunities. Its main purpose is to offer a feasible approach to health researchers who, conceptually, may link women's health to social and cultural conditions but are looking for practical implementation strategies to examine a women's health issue through the lens of their human rights. The proposed strategies include becoming fully informed of women's human rights directives to integrate them into research, mainstreaming gender in the research, using the expertise of grass-roots women's organisations in the setting, showcasing women's equity and equality in the organisational infrastructure, disseminating research findings to policymakers in the study locale to influence health priorities, and publicising the social conditions that are linked to women's diseases. The article explores conceptual and logistical dilemmas in transforming a study using these principles and also provides a case study to illustrate how these strategies can be operationalised.
This paper questions the right of corporations in developed countries to own biological samples of traditional medical knowledge in developing nations. This phenomenon has been referred to as biopiracy or as bioprospecting. Biopiracy is tackled in two international treaties - the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). But these treaties have different goals: the CBD focuses on protecting biological diversity, while TRIPS promotes private ownership. This paper addresses friction about how to interpret international contracts with embedded biopiracy. It recommends collecting traditional knowledge on publicly accessible databases so that patent offices can determine the real source of knowledge. Patent applicants could also be required to disclose the source of biological material to prevent misappropriation of genetic material. Countries should also strike deals with corporations to obtain fair compensation for use of resources.
In this report, the Special Rapporteur considers criminal laws and other legal restrictions relating to sexual and reproductive health and the right to health. These include criminal and other legal restrictions on: abortion; conduct during pregnancy; contraception and family planning; and the provision of sexual and reproductive education and information. These restrictions violate the right to health by restricting peoples’ access to quality goods, services and information, as well as violating their right to make their own decisions about their bodies. Moreover, the application of such laws as a means to achieving certain public health outcomes is often ineffective and disproportionate, according to the report. In cases where a barrier is created by a criminal law or other legal restriction, it is the obligation of the State to remove it. In response to countries that are calling for the progressive realisation of the right to health, the Rapporteur argues that the removal of such laws and legal restrictions is not subject to resource constraints; therefore he calls for the immediate scrapping of laws and policies undermining sexual and reproductive health to ensure everyone can enjoy full realisation of their right to health.
This initiative aims to reduce maternal mortality by holding governments accountable for implementing effective and equitable policies and programmes, securing increased resources at the global and national levels and promoting understanding among, and providing expertise to, key stakeholders on addressing maternal mortality as a human rights issue. It was founded by the AMDD program at Columbia University, CARE, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Family Care International, Physicians for Human Rights, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, Paul Hunt. These diverse organisations with different perspectives have joined together to use human rights in the struggle against maternal mortality.
Over the past two decades, legislative and regulatory frameworks have been developed that address links between the environment and health. However, the extent to which these instruments have been streamlined within existing national legislation has not been formally documented and, according to this paper, these instruments are not currently deployed or adequately equipped, notably in Africa. It reveals weaknesses in the international and national regulatory mechanisms and their implementation, and brings to light institutional and operational deficiencies and a dramatic lack of capacity to manage hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound manner. It points to the need for an integrated institutional framework addressing human health and the environment. The Revised International Health Regulations (2005), now being implemented in all African countries, should provide a more cohesive approach to health and environment risk management. Despite the many efforts undertaken by African countries, the level of awareness and understanding of these environmental agreements among country-level policy makers remains limited.
This new publication draws attention to important human rights issues that migration poses for health policy-makers internationally, such as the health implications of forced migration as well as detaining and screening migrants at the borders. The book will serve as a guide to emphasise important human rights principles by which governments, policy-makers and other actors can design and implement health policies and programmes in the context of migration. It sets out to demonstrate the need for further attention, research and elaboration of policy approaches in this area.
Organisations, companies, governments and media all around the world are busy planning exciting and meaningful International Women's Day activities for 8 March 2007. The UN theme for International Women's Day is "Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls".
This article tracks the shifting place of the international right to health, and human rights-based approaches to health, in the scholarly literature and United Nations (UN). From 1993 to 1994, the focus began to move from the right to health toward human rights-based approaches to health, including human rights guidance adopted by UN agencies in relation to specific health issues. There is a compelling case for a human rights-based approach to health, but it runs the risk of playing down the right to health, as evidenced by an examination of some UN human rights guidance. The right to health has important and distinctive qualities that are not provided by other rights—consequently, playing down the right to health can diminish rights-based approaches to health, as well as the right to health itself. Because general comments, the reports of UN Special Rapporteurs, and UN agencies’ guidance are exercises in interpretation, the author discusses methods of legal interpretation. The author suggests that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights permits distinctive interpretative methods within the boundaries established by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The author calls for the right to health to be placed explicitly at the centre of a rights-based approach and interpreted in accordance with public international law and international human rights law.