News, Resources, and Events Tagged "Human Rights"
We Want a Future Pandemic Treaty to Reflect the Perspective of the Global South
It is necessary that the discussion process of the Zero Draft incorporates a Latin American and Caribbean regional socio-political vision, which will make visible the consequences of neoliberal policies in…
When Misfortune Becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality
When Misfortune Becomes Injustice surveys the progress and challenges in deploying human rights to advance health and social equality over recent decades. Alicia Ely Yamin weaves together theory and…
A Supreme Court review of a contentious patent issue would change the way pharma claims discoveries
In the coming weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to review a wonky, but exceedingly important, debate over patents that has the pharmaceutical industry on…
It’s Time for American Feminists to Learn From Latin America’s Abortion-Rights Movement
“You guys left the streets,” Mexican feminist Verónica Cruz told me last September. We were speaking eight days after a law took effect in Texas that…
Reflections on Paul Farmer’s legacy: a clarion call for transformative human rights praxis in global health
Paul Farmer’s far-too-early passing on February 21, 2022 is an incalculable loss to those of us who knew and loved him, to students and patients around the globe, to the…
Travel restrictions and variants of concern: global health laws need to reflect evidence
As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread in the early days of the pandemic, governments neglected World Health Organization (WHO) guidance and imposed travel restrictions. These public health measures employed varied…
How can the government successfully engage the private sector in health for equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines?
Alicia Ely Yamin teaches courses related to global health and human rights at Harvard Law School and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is also Senior Advisor on…
On Sea Monsters and Sandcastles: Revisiting International Legal Frameworks regarding Public Health and Human Rights in Global Health Emergencies
As a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, swept across the globe with unprecedented speed in 2020, countries were faced with navigating between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis. In a quickly evolving situation, with…
Stopping toxic flow of guns from U.S. to Mexico
Alicia Ely Yamin, Senior Fellow in Global Health and Rights at the Petrie-Flom Center, drew a parallel between the lawsuit by the Mexican government and the settlement between Remington and…
Las 20 Voces Jurídicas Que Apoyan La Despenalización Del Aborto
“El aborto seguro es una garantía para los derechos de las mujeres y las niñas quienes quedan en embarazo producto de relaciones de subordinació…
Mental health, human rights, and legal capacity
In September, 2021, our edited volume Mental Health, Human Rights and Legal Capacity was published. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to engage with evolving debates related to legal capacity in…
The Struggle for Human Rights
Essays in honour of Philip Alston Edited by Nehal Bhuta, Florian Hoffmann, Sarah Knuckey, Frédéric Mégret, and Margaret Satterthwaite Evaluates the themes of law,…
Application for Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bioethics, Center for Human Values at Princeton University
The Princeton University Center for Human Values invites applications for the Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics for a position starting in September 2022. The Shapiro Fellowship supports outstanding scholars…
Online ONLY Addressing the Public Health Crisis at Border Detention Centers: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
Online Viewing In light of the rapidly developing COVID-19 outbreaks, Harvard University has restricted on-campus events. As a result, we will not be allowing in-person attendance at this event. Instead,…
Watch online now! Debt, Dignity, and Health Care: Guaranteeing Health Rights and Universal Health Coverage
Online Viewing Couldn't join us during the webinar? Watch fully-captioned video of the sessions! Check out the conversation on Twitter: #debtdignityhealth! View some of the panelists' slide presentations below! …
Protecting rights in a global crisis: HLS scholars raise important legal and ethical questions about health care delivery and the enactment of extraordinary public health measures
Fifty years from now, will emergency decisions made today to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic be remembered as reprehensible human rights violations, comparable to the internment of Japanese…
Securing Health, Justice, and Democracy against the COVID-19 Threat
Our federal government and all ofour state governments are now fully engaged in fighting a national emergency of historic proportions. The scale of the emergency is roughly equivalent to World…
Do not violate the International Health Regulations during the COVID-19 outbreak
The International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) govern how 196 countries and WHO collectively address the global spread of disease and avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade. Article 43 of this legally…
Advancing women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and equity
Petrie-Flom Center Senior Fellow on Global Health and Rights Alicia Ely Yamin is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Accountability Panel for Every Woman, Every Child, Every…
Eighth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review
At the Petrie-Flom Center's eighth annual Health Law Year in P/Review, leading experts discussed major developments in health law and policy during 2019 and what to watch out for…
New York judge tosses Trump administration’s conscience rule: The rule allowed health plans to refuse to cover or perform any services they oppose on religious or moral grounds.
A federal judge in New York tossed the Trump administration's "conscience rule" that would allow health plans and providers to refuse to cover or perform services like abortion, contraception…
Disability, Health, Law, and Bioethics
This edited volume is based on the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2018 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to construct a twenty-first century conception of disablement that resolves the tension…
Health Law Workshop: Dayna Matthew: On Charlottesville
Presentation Download the Presentation: "On Charlottesville" About the Presenter Dayna Bowen Matthew is William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law, F. Palmer Weber Research Professor of…
Struggles for Human Rights in Health in an Age of Neoliberalism: From Civil Disobedience to Epistemic Disobedience
From the article: Like other contributors to this special issue and beyond, I believe we are at a critical inflection point in human rights and need to re-energize our work…
Gene Editing of Babies and Universal Human Rights: Hot Topics in Health Law
At this event, Professor George Annas, beloved health law professor at Boston University, discussed gene editing of babies and the idea of health care as a human right. The event…
On Life and Death in Rikers with Dr. Homer Venters
“The closing of Rikers is absolutely necessary. It's not sufficient to transform the criminal justice system in New York City to become more humane, but it's necessary.…
Book Talk: Global Health Justice and Governance
Description In a world beset by serious and unconscionable health disparities, by dangerous contagions that can circle our globalized planet in hours, and by a bewildering confusion of health actors…
Trauma at the Border
Couldn't join us in person? Check out some of the panelists' presentations and additional reading on this subject below! Description At the center of contemporary political debate are the…
Inequity in Mental Health Care Access
This panel discussed the many local and national hurdles to mental health care access and equity. How do the barriers to mental health care impact people of different backgrounds and…
Health as a Human Right, Medicare for All, and the Evolution of the American Health Care Debate
From the article: The United States famously does not have an explicit federal constitutional right to health. By contract, the “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”…
Health Law Workshop: Craig Konnoth
Presentation Download the Presentation: "Medical Civil Rights" About the Presenter Craig Konnoth is Associate Professor of Law at Colorado Law. His work lies at the intersection of health law and…
Tech and Human Rights Fellowship Program, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
The Tech+Human Rights Fellowship is part of a new Carr Center for Human Rights Policy initiative to examine how technological advances over the next several decades will affect the…
Topol Research Fellows, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy invites applications from Harvard Kennedy School students interested in and committed to nonviolence and peace to apply for the newly announced Topol Research…
Open Society Internship in Rights and Governance, School of Public Policy at Central European University (CEU)
The OSIRG summer internship program allows students to immerse themselves in the ideas and practice of open society by participating in a clinical seminar held at SPP at CEU in…
Health Law Workshop: Christina S. Ho
Presentation Download the Presentation: "Health Impact Assessment: A Negative Right to Health" About the Presenter Professor Christina S. Ho is Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School. She joined the…
Health Law Workshop: S. Matthew Liao
Presentation Topic: "The Moral Status and Rights of Artificial Intelligence" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for the workshop, please contact Jennifer Minnich…
Call for Applications: Fung Global Fellows Program, Princeton University
The 2019-20 program topic is “Thinking Globally.” How people have thought about the planet has informed the institutions, norms, and policies that have pulled it…
Call For Papers: The Impact of Politics on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Reproductive Health Matters (RHM)
General Description Volume 27 Number 54, May 2019 Submission deadline 31 October 2018 RHM is compiling a themed issue to be published in May 2019 on the impact of politics on sexual and reproductive health…
On the Human Right to Health: Statistical Lives, Contingent Persons, and Other Difficult Questions
Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has written a chapter in the fortchoming book "Human Rights, Democracy, and Legitimacy in a World of Disorder," (Cambridge University Press, edited by Silja Voeneky…
2018 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics
Couldn't make it to the event? Check out some of the speakers' slides here! "Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as…
On the Human Right to Health: Statistical Lives, Contingent Persons, and Other Difficult Questions
From the article: In ethics and political philosophy, it is not uncommon to distinguish the question of who is a moral agent (one who bears moral responsibility) from the question…
S.J.D. candidate awarded scholarship to study health activism from a legal perspective
From the article: Maayan Sudai, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, has been awarded a prestigious scholarship from Israel’s Dan David Foundation to support her…
Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference 2018: Defining Death: Organ Transplantation and the 50-Year Legacy of the Harvard Report on Brain Death
The 2018 Annual Bioethics Conference explored the legacy of the 1968 report from the Harvard Medical School committee that proposed the concept of “brain death” as a new criterion for…
Enabling Disability Rights in the U.S. and around the World
Professor Michael Stein is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. An internationally acclaimed expert on disability law and policy, Stein participated in the…
Criminal Abortion in the United States
Couldn't join us for the event? Listen to the full event below! The Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School invites you to a lunch talk on human rights…
HIV Criminalization: Creating a Viral Underclass in the Law
Description HLS Lambda hosted this lecture on HIV stigma, criminalization, and activism. Sean Strub is a longtime HIV survivor, founder of POZ magazine, director of the Sero Project, and an…
Legal Roundtable: Panel addresses governor’s indictment
From the discussion: On Monday’s St. Louis on the Air, our monthly Legal Roundtable panelists discussed recent issues pertaining to the law, including the indictment of Gov. Eric…
Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness
Couldn't join us for the event? Check out the video of the event here! Please join us for a talk with Trevor Hoppe on his book, Punishing Disease: HIV…
Behind Bars: Ethics and Human Rights in U.S. Prisons
The United States leads the world in incarceration. The “War on Drugs” and prioritizing punishment over rehabilitation has led to mass imprisonment, mainly of the nation’s…
Book Launch: Specimen Science: Ethics and Policy Implications
In September 2017, MIT Press will publish Specimen Science: Ethics and Policy Implications, co-edited by Holly Fernandez Lynch (outgoing Petrie-Flom Executive Director), Barbara Bierer, I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director), and Suzanne…
Call for Submissions: Special Issue “Genetic Discrimination and the Law”, Laws
Description Genetic science and technology are advancing at a fast pace, with scientists continuing to make genetic discoveries with respect to the make-up of the human body, and the cause…
Health Law Workshop: Aziza Ahmed
Presentation Topic: "'Dead But Not Disabled': A Feminist Legal Struggle for Recognition" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for the workshop, please contact…
HLS in the World: New Technologies, New Dilemmas: Part of the HLS200 Bicentennial Celebration
This event was part of the HLS in the World sessions of HLS │200, a bicentennial summit of academic sessions and programs devoted to legal issues of pressing importance. Panel Description …
Health Law Workshop: Alicia Ely Yamin
Presentation Topic: "Democracy, Health Systems and the Right to Health: Narratives of Charity, Markets and Citizenship" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for…
Specimen Science: Ethics and Policy Implications
Order through MIT Press and receive 30% off using discount code MSPECIMEN30: Order now! This edited volume stems from a conference in 2015 that brought together leading experts to address key ethical…
Editorial Aspirations: Human Integrity at the Frontiers of Biology
Video is available on the main workshop website. Check it out here! Agenda Wednesday, April 26 – Emerson Hall, Room 105 5:00 - 6:30 pm: Opening Panel Chair: J. Benjamin Hurlbut (Arizona State University) …
Health Law Workshop: Leo Beletsky
Presentation Download the presentation: "America’s Favorite Antidote: Murder-By-Overdose in the Age of the Opioid Epidemic" About the Presenter Leo Beletsky is Associate Professor of Law and Health Sciences…
Review of Human Subjects Research Regulation: Perspectives on the Future: edited by I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director) and Holly Fernandez Lynch (Executive Director)
From the review: Overall, the editors present an intriguing look at the concerns currently facing human subjects research regulation and provide a number of suggestions for how to go about…
EVENT POSTPONED: HLS Library Book Talk: Charles Fried on Medical Experimentation: Personal Integrity and Social Policy - New Edition
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 at noon Harvard Law School Room WCC 2036 Milstein East B/C 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge Lunch will be provided. More About Medical Experimentation: Personal Integrity and Social Policy: New…
RECEIVE 30% OFF! Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics
Abstract of the Introduction: This introductory chapter to the edited volume Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics (I. Glenn Cohen, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Christopher T. Robertson, eds.) introduces the…
Rights, Nudging, and the Good of Others
Luke Gelinas, the Petrie-Flom/Harvard Catalyst Fellow in Clinical Research Ethics, has a new article commentary out in the American Journal of Bioethics responding to a new article (in the…
Issues With Tissues
Student Fellow Alumna Emily Largent has a new article commentary out in the American Journal of Bioethics, in which she responds to a new article (in the same issue) on…
Professor offers basics of bioethics and the law in 90 minutes: Harvard expert breaks down complex topic for Ed Portal and online audience
On September 13, 2016, Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen delivered a lecture at the Harvard Ed Portal as part of his online EdX course "Bioethics: The Law, Medicine, and Ethics of…
FDA Regulations Limit Blood Donations From Gay Men
Excerpt from the article: On World Blood Donation Day and in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting, a leading bioethicist Tuesday called for a change in the FDA&rsquo…
After The Orlando Massacre, Many In The LGBTQ Community Are Turned Away From Giving Blood
Excerpt from interview: Early in the 1980's, there was a lifetime ban or deferral for any man who had ever had sex with another man. Even once. But in May,…
When and Why Is Research without Consent Permissible?
Abstract: The view that research with competent adults requires valid consent to be ethical perhaps finds its clearest expression in the Nuremberg Code, whose famous first principle asserts that &ldquo…
Power, Suffering, and the Struggle for Dignity: Human Rights Frameworks for Health and Why They Matter
“A brilliant, highly readable, and moving book.” -Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty “This book deftly illustrates the core purpose of a…
Reflections in Honor of the Life and Influence of Professor Alan Wertheimer
Description This conference was an afternoon of reflection on the life, work, and enduring influence of Professor Alan Wertheimer (1942-2015). Professor Wertheimer was a leading philosopher of law and bioethics,…
Petrie-Flom Welcomes New Harvard Catalyst Fellow in Clinical Research Ethics
We are pleased to announce our newest addition, Luke Gelinas, who will be serving as the first Petrie-Flom Center/Harvard Catalyst Fellow in Clinical Research Ethics. Luke earned his PhD…
This is Your Brain on Human Rights: Moral Enhancement and Human Rights
Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has authored a new paper on the use of moral enhacement to increase the respect for human rights. Abstract: It seems fair to say that…
HHS rewrites Obamacare rules: Orders free birth control for all
From the article: The Obama administration on Monday ordered all insurers to provide IUDs, the contraceptive patch and other birth control free of out-of-pocket charge to all women, thereby rewriting…
Johns Hopkins Faces Lawsuit Over Global STD Research
Between 1945 and 1956, American researchers knowingly exposed hundreds of Guatemalan villagers to sexually transmitted diseases without their knowledge. President Obama has formally apologized for the studies, which are now widely considered…
Johns Hopkins Sued for Guatemala Experiments
From the article: Johns Hopkins University and other institutions are facing an up-to-$1 billion lawsuit brought by nearly 800 research participants and their families regarding experiments conducted in Guatemala during the 194…
Hopkins faces $1B lawsuit over role in government study that gave subjects STDs
From the article: Nearly 800 former research subjects and their families filed a billion-dollar lawsuit Wednesday against the Johns Hopkins University, blaming the institution for its role in 1940s government experiments…
Gender (Re)assignment: Legal, Ethical, and Conceptual Issues
Couldn't join us? Watch the available talks and the full Q & A online! Trans and intersex individuals face a series of legal, medical, and social challenges. This panel…
Medical Tourism, Access to Health Care, and Global Justice
Abstract: Medical tourism – the travel of patients from one (the “home”) country to another (the “destination”) country for medical treatment – represents a growing business.…
A Right to Health?: A lecture by John Tasioulas
Couldn't join us? Watch the full event online! There have been recent calls to establish a framework convention on health grounded in the human right to health. But is…
Joining Forces: A Story of Science and Religion in Rural Ghana: A lecture by Student Fellow Lauren Taylor
How do science and religion interact in the delivery of mental health care in one region of Ghana? Lauren Taylor will guide a discussion about the value and limits of …
FDA plans to end prohibition on blood donation by gay men, with conditions
"[...] the ban that we had in place was really outdated. It dates back to 1983, the early days of the HIV crisis, and a few things have changed since then. First…
F.D.A. Easing Ban on Gays, to Let Some Give Blood
[...] “This is a major victory for gay civil rights,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a law professor at Harvard who specializes in bioethics and health. “We’re…
FDA Announces Plans to End Lifetime Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood
[...] Harvard Law School bioethics and the law professor I. Glenn Cohen told VICE News that while he thought the FDA's proposed policy change is a good first step, it…
US lifts ban on gay men donating blood — as long as they don’t have sex with other men
[...] Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law professor who wrote about the blood donor rule in JAMA: the Journal of the American Medical Association, sees a one-year deferral as an interim step,…
FDA Advisors Not Sold on Lifting Ban on Gay Men Giving Blood
[...] The FDA first adopted the policy at the dawn of the AIDS crisis. However, changing times and technological advances have rendered the decades-old ban obsolete, according to Glenn Cohen, who…
Decades-old ban on blood donations from gay men to be revisited
Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen, who co-wrote the argument against the ban on gay male blood donation in the Journal of the American Medical Association, joins NBC's Andrea…
Will FDA Lift Gay Blood Donor Ban?
[...] "They really are out of step with the rest of the world," Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor, told the Post. In a recent article in the Journal of…
Government could ease 31-year-old ban on blood donations from gay men
[...] “They really are out of step with the rest of the world,” said Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor who with two colleagues recently argued in the…
FDA weighs lifting ban on blood donations from gay men
[...] “The public health rationale for this ban has kind of been packed away,” said Glenn Cohen, a medical ethics professor at Harvard Law School who criticized the ban…
Global Reproduction: Health, Law, and Human Rights in Surrogacy and Egg Donation
A screening of the documentary Can We See the Baby Bump, Please?, which was followed by a panel discussion of the legal and human rights issues surrounding surrogacy and egg…
Reconsideration of the Lifetime Ban on Blood Donation by Men Who Have Sex With Men
Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has co-authored a new Viewpoint piece in the July 23/30, 2014 issue of JAMA, arguing for the end of the FDA's lifetime ban on blood donation…
Current Legal Issues in HIV/AIDS Work
Description More than 30 years have passed since AIDS first appeared in the United States. Today the CDC estimates that 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV/AIDS, and each year 50,000 Americans…
Reproductive Rights around the Globe
This discussion of selected topics in the field of international reproductive rights addressed a range of issues. Expert panelists were: I. Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty…
The Future of Human Subjects Research Regulation
Conference Description The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), titled "Human Subjects Research Protections: Enhancing Protections for Research Subjects…