Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University have launched the Global Health and Human Rights Database (www.globalhealthrights.org). The Database is a free and fully searchable online database of more than 1000 judgments, constitutions and international instruments on the intersection between health and human rights.
The Database is the first attempt to comprehensively make health and human rights law from both common and civil law jurisdictions available free of cost online, and features case law, constitutions, and international and regional legal instruments representing more than 80 countries and 25 languages. It also provides 500 plain-language summaries and 200 original translations of case law previously unavailable in English. The Database has been created in collaboration with more than 100 partners from civil society, academia, and legal practice worldwide.
An official public launch of the Database was held on 24 October 2013, at the Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.
Anand Grover, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and the Director of the HIV/AIDS Unit at Lawyers Collective, gave the opening address at the launch. Mr. Grover emphasised the importance of the Database in providing free online access to legal materials for civil society in the developing world, and acknowledged the tremendous contributions of local partners in the development of the Database.
The development of the Database has been generously funded by the Ford Foundation and the Levi-Strauss Foundation.
For more information about the Database, please email contact@globalhealthrights.org or visit us at www.globalhealthrights.org
Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute welcome potential collaborators. Please contact Suzanne Zhou at zhou.suzanne@gmail.com for further details.
The launch webcast may be viewed at the links below:
Part 1<http://webtv.un.org/watch/part-1-launch-of-the-global-health-and-human-rights-database/2766913541001/>
Part 2<http://webtv.un.org/watch/part-2-launch-of-the-global-health-and-human-rights-database/2767083990001/>
Lawyers Collective
(http://www.lawyerscollective.org) is a leading public interest law NGO in India focusing on strategic litigation and advocacy in HIV/AIDS and women’s rights, with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore
The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law is a premier research centre for global and national health law, policy and scholarship at Georgetown University.