Framing Human Rights in Global Health Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Mason Meier ◽  
Lawrence O. Gostin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Governance Institutions

This chapter frames the implementation of human rights law through global health governance. Global governance institutions have sought to translate human rights into public policy, shifting from the development of health-related rights under international law to the implementation of these normative standards in global policies, programs, and practices. This shift toward an “era of implementation” across an expanding global health governance landscape looks beyond the traditional “human rights system” in implementing human rights for global health. Analyzing human rights as part of global health law, this chapter examines how human rights have become a framework for global governance, with institutions of global health governance seeking to “mainstream” human rights across all organizational actions. This chapter concludes that there is a need for institutional analysis to compare organizational approaches conducive to the implementation of health-related human rights.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-331
Author(s):  
Judith Bueno de Mesquita ◽  
Anuj Kapilashrami ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
International Human

AbstractWhile 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.

Human Rights in Global Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Structural Determinants ◽  
Organizational Policies ◽  
Governmental Organizations

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. Bringing together leading health and human rights scholars and practitioners from academia, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system, this volume explores: (1) the foundations of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance, (2) the mandate of the World Health Organization to pursue a human rights-based approach to health, (3) the role of inter-governmental organizations across a range of health-related human rights, (4) the influence of rights-based economic governance on public health, and (5) the focus on global health among institutions of human rights governance. Contributing chapters map the distinct human rights activities within a specific institution of global governance for health. Through the comparative institutional analysis in this volume, the contributing authors examine institutional efforts 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.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Mason Meier ◽  
Lawrence O. Gostin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
Public Health Challenges ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Governance Institutions

This introductory chapter outlines the global governance institutions that structure the realization of human rights for global health. With this volume examining the relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, a proliferating set of global governance institutions have developed policies, programs, and practices to operationalize human rights to address public health challenges in a globalizing world. As an institutional analysis that focuses on organizations, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that bear implementation responsibilities for health-related human rights. Examining institutional dynamics to implement human rights, the contributing authors analyze institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming. This introduction concludes by recognizing the importance of comparative analysis in understanding institutional approaches to human rights in global health, outlining the research methods for studying human rights mainstreaming in global governance institutions and framing a new field of study on rights-based governance for global health advancement.

Pluralist Accountability in Global Health Governance

2020 ◽  
pp. 181-205
Author(s):  
Gisela Hirschmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Informal Governance ◽  
The Core

This chapter analyzes the conditions for pluralist accountability regarding public–private health partnerships in the areas of vaccination and vaccine development in India. While in many other fields global governance is still characterized by formal delegation relationships with international organizations as the mandating authorities, global health governance has become very fragmented and consists of primarily informal governance structures. This case study reveals the limitations of pluralist accountability in complex global governance: it demonstrates how the evolution of pluralist accountability was inhibited by both a politicized environment that does not incentivize the exercise of accountability and a moral dilemma situation in which actors adopted a strong counter-norm to render themselves invulnerable against human rights demands. The core question concerning what implementing actors should be held accountable for remains disputed, which thus makes a pluralist accountability relationship impossible.

China, International Society, and Global Health Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Society ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Governance Institutions ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship

China possesses the world’s largest economy, but that economic clout has not necessarily translated into taking leading roles within existing global health governance institutions and processes. It is a country that both contributes to and receives financial assistance from global health institutions. It has incorporated health into some of its foreign policy activities, but it has largely avoided proactively engaging with the values and norms embodied within the global health governance system. This ambivalent relationship reflects larger questions about how and whether China fits within international society and what its engagement or lack thereof might portend for international society’s future. This chapter examines China’s place within global health governance by examining its interactions with international society on global health issues, its use of health as a foreign policy tool, and its relationships with global health governance organizations.

Divergent Perspectives in Global Health Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Global Health Policy ◽  
Self Interest

The global health governance (GHG) literature frames health variously as a matter of security and foreign policy, human rights, or global public good. Divergence among these perspectives has forestalled the development of a consensus vision for global health. Global health policy will differ according to the frame applied. Fundamentally, GHG today operates on a rational actor model, encompassing a continuum from the purely self-interest-maximizing position at one extreme to a more nuanced approach that takes others’ interests into account when making one’s own calculations. Even where humanitarian concerns are clearly and admirably at play, however, the problem of motivations remains. Often narrow self-interest is also at work, and actors obfuscate this behind altruistic motives.

The Pan American Health Organization and the Mainstreaming of Human Rights in Regional Health Governance

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Mason Meier ◽  
Ana S. Ayala
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Regional Health ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Global Health Policy ◽  
Pan American ◽  
Health Organization

In the development of a rights-based approach to global health governance, international organizations have looked to human rights under international law as a basis for public health. Operationalizing human rights law through global health policy, the World Health Organization (WHO) has faced obstacles in efforts to mainstream human rights across the WHO Secretariat. Without centralized human rights leadership in an increasingly fragmented global health policy landscape, regional health offices have sought to advance human rights in health governance and support states in realizing a rights-based approach to health. Examining the efforts of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), this article explores the evolution of human rights in PAHO policy, assesses the mainstreaming of human rights in the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (Bureau or PASB), and analyzes the future of the rights-based approach through regional health governance.

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