Cross-posted from: FXB HHR Journal <HHRJOURNAL@hsph.harvard.edu>
A new paper is available from Health and Human Rights: An International Journal:
Bridging international law and rights-based litigation: Mapping health-related rights through the development of the Global Health and Human Rights Database Benjamin Mason Meier, Helena Nygren-Krug, Oscar A. Cabrera, Ana Ayala, Lawrence O. Gostin
Available at http://hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/473/735.
Abstract
The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the World Health Organization, and the Lawyers Collective have come together to develop a searchable Global Health and Human Rights Database that maps the intersection of health and human rights in judgments, international and regional instruments, and national constitutions. Where states long remained unaccountable for violations of health-related human rights, litigation has arisen as a central mechanism in an expanding movement to create rights-based accountability. Facilitated by the incorporation of international human rights standards in national law, this judicial enforcement has supported the implementation of rights-based claims, giving meaning to states' longstanding obligations to realize the highest attainable standard of health. Yet despite these advancements, there has been insufficient awareness of the international and domestic legal instruments enshrining health-related rights and little understanding of the scope and content of litigation upholding these rights. As this accountability movement evolves, the Global Health and Human Rights Database seeks to chart this burgeoning landscape of international instruments, national constitutions, and judgments for health-related rights. Employing international legal research to document and catalogue these three interconnected aspects of human rights for the public's health, the Database's categorization by human rights, health topics, and regional scope provides a comprehensive means of understanding health and human rights law. Through these categorizations, the Global Health and Human Rights Database serves as a basis for analogous legal reasoning across states to serve as precedents for future cases, for comparative legal analysis of similar health claims in different country contexts, and for empirical research to clarify the impact of human rights judgments on public health outcomes.
Call for Submissions
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal <http://hhrjournal.org/> , published by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights <http://www.harvardfxbcenter.org/>at the Harvard School of Public Health, welcomes submissions on a rolling basis. New issues are published in June and December, and selected papers are available prior to issue release.
Original articles (original research, commentary, and analyses) suitable for scholarly peer review are invited (3,500–7,000 words). In addition to research papers, we seek manuscripts (500–7,000 words) that emerge from and reflect on practical efforts for the realization of social and economic rights. The form and style of these pieces is flexible, but they should be of genuine relevance to people engaged in related work. Like all other submissions, papers for this section will be peer reviewed.
Health and Human Rights welcomes articles that explore the centrality of the right to health in all social, economic, cultural and environmental contexts. We are interested particularly in the themes of (1) climate change and the right to health; (2) health rights and effectiveness of international treaty law; (3) interdisciplinary explorations of health and human rights; (4) rights-informed innovations in health program design; (5) health and human rights as “well-being.”
The editors also invite short letters, brief research or fieldwork summaries, and short opinion or perspective essays (up to 2,500 words) for publication as "Letters to the Editor." The editors also invite book reviews (up to 1,000 words) and posts (up to 700 words) for the HHR blog at http://www.hhropenforum.org.
Please visit our submissions page <http://hhrjournal.org/submissions.php>for more information.
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