The Integration of Health and Human Rights: An Appreciation of Jonathan M. Mann

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSEPH C. d'ORONZIO

Jonathan Mann was a pioneer in establishing communication between the world of public health and that of human rights activism. At the very start, he strongly believed that although each of these two fields was in the midst of separate paradigm shifts, these shifts are essential, perhaps causal, to the combined health and human rights movement.

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Jacobson ◽  
Soheil Soliman

Public health is concerned with how to improve the population’s health. At times, though, actions to improve the community’s health may collide with individual civil rights. For example, a public health response to a bioterrorism attack, such as smallpox, may require relaxing an individual’s due process protections to prevent the smallpox from spreading. This tension lies at the heart of public health policy. It also must be considered in discussing the concept of human rights in health.Proponents of incorporating the concept of human rights in health emphasize the importance of both individual rights and collective rights. They argue that observing human rights is not only consistent with broad public health goals, but necessary to their attainment. To many human rights advocates, the concept is not limited to protecting against governmental intrusion. Accordingly, they emphasize the government’s obligation to promote attainment of human rights by, for instance, providing adequate health care.


Author(s):  
Wu Chuang-Feng ◽  
Wu Chien-Huei

This chapter explores how to navigate health-related human rights in the trade and public health complex by tracing the intersection of international trade and public health and examining the role of international trade in global health law. An intrinsic tension exists between international trade, public health, and human rights in this globalizing world. Even though growing global interconnectedness has generated economic growth and information sharing, it is also characterized by threats—to access to medicine, commercialization of health care, and widening health inequality. Although this tension was well recognized in the development of the World Trade Organization, it has become much more complicated in recent decades. By addressing critical questions surrounding trade and public health, examining the transformation of risks into opportunities through global efforts, it will be possible to investigate possible venues to resolve trade and public health tensions in light of human rights.


Author(s):  
Chuang-Feng Wu ◽  
Chien-Huei Wu

This chapter explores how to navigate health-related human rights in the trade and public health complex by tracing the intersection of international trade and public health and examining the role of international trade in global health law. An intrinsic tension exists between international trade, public health, and human rights in this globalizing world. Even though growing global interconnectedness has generated economic growth and information sharing, it is also characterized by threats—to access to medicine, commercialization of health care, and widening health inequality. Although this tension was well recognized in the development of the World Trade Organization, it has become much more complicated in recent decades. By addressing critical questions surrounding trade and public health, examining the transformation of risks into opportunities through global efforts, it will be possible to investigate possible venues to resolve trade and public health tensions in light of human rights.


Author(s):  
Flood Colleen M ◽  
Thomas Bryan

This chapter examines both the power and limitations of litigation as a means of facilitating accountability for the advancement of public health. While almost half of the world’s constitutions now contain a justiciable right to health, the impact of litigation has been mixed. Judicial accountability has, in some cases, advanced state obligations to realize the highest attainable standard of health, but in other cases, litigation has threatened the solidarity undergirding public health systems. There is significant country-to-country variation in interpreting health-related human rights, as well as differing views of the proper role of courts in interpreting and enforcing these rights. Surveying regional human rights systems and national judicial efforts to address health and human rights, it is necessary to analyze how courts have approached—and how they should approach—litigation of the right to health and health-related human rights to improve health for all.


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