Lyla Latif Digital health apps can play a crucial role in fulfilling core components of the right to health: availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality (AAAQ) of health services. Their use in the progressive realization of health rights could be significant in regions where resources are scarce, especially the Global South where the gaps in healthcare access and quality are acute. Innovations such as telemedicine and mobile health apps are examples ..read more

As of 7 December 2023, the World Health Organization reports that 17,487 Palestinians have been killed in more than two months of bombardment on Gaza, with a large proportion of them children. The situation is dire, and as Public Health professionals we are extremely concerned at the toll this is having on Gaza’s population. Infrastructure to support public health is on its knees. Hospitals, clinics, places of worship, schools, bakeries ..read more

A. Kayum Ahmed, Bram Wispelwey, and Yara Asi In an open letter to President Biden more than 100 faculty from schools of public health and medical schools across the United States joined calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to attacks on hospitals. Signatories include Dr. Mary Bassett, director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, and Dr. Seema Yasmin, an Emmy Award-winning ..read more

Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, co-publishers of the Health and Human Rights Journal, announced today the appointment of Drexel Professor Joseph Amon, PhD, MSPH, as the journal’s Editor-in-Chief. The Health and Human Rights Journal began publication at Harvard in 1994 under the editorship of Prof. Jonathan Mann, who subsequently became Dean of what would become the ..read more

Sara (Meg) Davis The forthcoming high-level UK AI Safety Summit focuses on existential threats caused by the rapid growth and proliferation of AI systems. Health goals—for example, the promise of more rapid and accurate diagnosis and treatment—are often cited as an underlying rationale for the rapid growth of AI. But in practice, without stronger AI governance, the profound inequalities and human rights issues in global health risk being amplified. Experts ..read more

Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion and Timothy Wafula Digital technology and its benefits and risks to the right to health are the focus of the latest report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the Special Rapporteur, is presenting her thematic report “Digital innovation, technologies and the right to health” to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday 22 June, 2023. We highlight four issues ..read more

Hannah van Kolfschooten and Angela Hefti All over the world, individuals are taking governments to court for their role in climate change, or rather, their “climate inaction”. The 2022 Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation Policy Report shows that strategic litigation cases to enforce climate laws and policies have doubled since 2015. On 29 March 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) heard its first ..read more

Sara (Meg) Davis The International AIDS Conference is a biennial litmus test for the global HIV response: a moment to celebrate progress in research and practice, forge new connections and reconnect with allies. Human rights has long been a central topic, both on the formal program and in the Global Village where civil society gathers. This year at AIDS 2022 in Montreal, Canada, many of the human rights track sessions ..read more

Andrés Constantin and Maia Levy Daniel A few years ago, Belén ended up in jail after being admitted to a hospital in Argentina for suffering a miscarriage.[1] Within hours, she was surrounded by the police and accused of having induced an abortion, which was illegal. Belén spent 29 months in preventive detention and was sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide due to Argentina’s strict abortion laws at ..read more

Johannes Wheeldon and Jon Heidt Introduction Recently, a special section in this journal reviewed the widespread misuse of compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centers.[1] Although the issue was a welcome addition to the literature, most contributors focused on formal responses to injected drugs. A detailed discussion of the rise of coerced treatment as part of cannabis decriminalization was notable by its absence.[2] Cannabis remains the most used psychoactive substance under international control. In ..read more