Human Rights at Home Blog

An Analysis of the Right to Health for Palestinians

In Fall 2024, the Human Rights at Home Law Profs Blog is excited to feature a series of blog posts focusing on human rights and the environment written by students in the International Human Rights Clinic at UIC Law. This is the sixth post in that series. The first post can be accessed here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. The fifth post is here.

By Buthaina Hattab, 2L at UIC Law

For a Palestinian, human rights violations can begin at birth. Palestinians are sometimes born at an Israeli checkpoint, instead of a hospital, because Israeli soldiers restrict Palestinian mothers from crossing the checkpoint and accessing healthcare. The systematic denial of Palestinian’s access to healthcare violates Israel’s responsibility under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). In August 2024, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued General Recommendation 37 (GR 37), a written recommendation addressing racial discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to health and clarified State obligations under the CERD. GR 37 reinforces the obligation of Israel, as a signatory to CERD, to ensure that Palestinians have the right to access healthcare without discrimination or excessive state intervention. States are required to prevent discrimination, protect individuals against harm, and promote equality and dignity for all members of society.

The right to health under the CERD is “the right to prevention from health-harming conditions, disease and injury...[and] the right to equal and unhindered access to information and... health facilities, goods, services, including the right to privacy and confidentiality” among other factors. GR 37 affirms people are entitled to the right to be healthy and recognizes how racial discrimination negatively impacts the ability to exercise that right. Explaining the “right to the enjoyment of health” in the struggle against racial discrimination is significant because it advances a legal framework for racial justice.  

GR 37 also explains that toxic environmental exposures and limited access to health care disproportionally impact those that are victims of racial discrimination, like Palestinians. The Israeli government and military systematically deny Palestinians the right to health by restricting and controlling their movements. Israeli settlements are strategically built to isolate Palestinian villages resulting in less access to health care, safe and potable water, adequate sanitation, and overall healthy environmental conditions. As outlined in this map by Visualizing Palestine, Israeli settlers use segregated roads and checkpoints to promote the connection between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israeli settlement infrastructure makes it very hard for Palestinians to access healthcare-both preventative and advanced-beyond the bounds of their villages and towns. The infrastructure that divides Palestinian land also impacts access to clean water. As a result, Palestinians are unable to update their water system or connect the systems to other towns. GR 37 identifies racial discrimination at the structural level, that can impact the right to health, creating “long-standing health inequities and high rates of poverty and social exclusion.”

In the Occupied West Bank, the web of segregated roads and checkpoints is a form of racism, at a structural level, that negatively impacts Palestinians right to bodily autonomy and physical integrity. According to a report from the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights submitted in 2005, 61 Palestinian women gave birth at Israeli checkpoints between September 2000 and December 2004, and 36 of their babies died as a result. The restriction of reproductive health care services is in direct violation of GR 37, where reproductive health care services are considered an important element of the right to health. GR 37 also recognizes the right to equal unhindered access to healthcare facilities and services, which is directly impacted by Israeli settlements. The segregated roads also show how “racial discrimination operates as a separate health risk and as a structural social determinant of health.” The roads are a physical effect of racial discrimination that hinder people’s right to health.

The right to health also explains that racial discrimination is determined by an individual’s environment. For this reason, adequate quantity, quality and maintenance level of safe drinking water and sanitation is outlined in GR 37 and Article 11 of CERD. According to Amnesty International, Israeli settlements impact water distribution within the West Bank, where Palestinian water intake is heavily regulated by the Israeli government. Additionally, the settlements are routinely constructed on hilltops, allowing wastewater to drain into valleys where Palestinians live (Norwegian Refugee Council). Israeli settlements have unlimited access to water sources, including personal swimming pools, while Palestinians have limited access to water sources and underdeveloped water infrastructure (Amnesty International). This violates Palestinian right to health by creating adverse effects from the exploitation of toxic waste storage.

GR 37 explains the right to health not as a vacuum, but rather as embedded in the surrounding environment, and subjected to surrounding structural racism. This recommendation expands and reinforces State duty under the right to health to ensure access to healthcare and resources necessary for life. A set of guiding principles regarding the right to health is a significant step forward in international law. Reviewing the recommendation alongside longstanding Palestinian human rights violations provide a new framework for advocacy.

Spray for Relief

In Fall 2024, the Human Rights at Home Law Profs Blog is excited to feature a series of blog posts focusing on human rights and the environment written by students in the International Human Rights Clinic at UIC Law. This is the fourth post in that series. The first post can be accessed here. The second post is here. The third post is here.

By Eric Mikucki, 2L at UIC Law

In May 2024, the U.S. State Department accused Russian forces of using chemical weapons, chloropicrin tear gas, in its illegal invasion of Ukraine. This public statement was followed by the imposition of sanctions against the Russian government. The use of chemical weapons in wartime has been banned internationally by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Prohibition in War and Domestic Use

The United States specifically alleged that Russian forces deployed chloropicrin tear gas in Ukraine. Despite clear condemnation from the United States, it regularly uses tear gas and considers its use legal when directed at U.S. civilians during times of protest or alleged civil unrest. The United States justifies the use of chemical weapons against civilians as a necessary tool for crowd control, meant to incapacitate crowds that have been deemed violent or unlawful. In practice, however, this justification by the United States is often unsupported as law enforcement often use chemical weapons with excessive and disproportionate force against crowds of protestors, often adding to the chaos if not creating it to begin with.

The methods of tear gas dispersal are generally indiscriminate and uncontrollable, resulting in civilian casualties. For example, a Philadelphia protester, Amira Chowdhury, explained that she “felt like I was choking to death” and “couldn’t breathe.” Amira suffered bruises as people scrambled over her to escape. She was victimized again later that evening as police deployed tear gas on protestors in her neighborhood and it seeped into her home. She stated “I can’t even be in my own house without escaping the violence of the state.” Others, such as a mother and her toddler, Gracie, who were not part of any protest were made victims as the gas deployed drifted past their car on their drive home. This use of chemical weapons by U.S. law enforcement presents a great danger to the peoples’ right to peacefully assemble and from unjust punishment.

Finally, allowing domestic production of chemical weapons has enabled their use in war despite their explicit prohibition under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The goal of the Chemical Weapons Convention is to eliminate the entire category of weapons of mass destruction. As such, the Convention demands that the United States “takes necessary steps to enforce that prohibition in respect of persons (natural or legal) within their jurisdiction.” The United States has clearly failed to do so as it produces tear gas that is found in warzones globally and U.S. law enforcement continue their abuse of civilians’ rights with the use of these chemical weapons.

Negative Impacts of Exposure

The immediate negative health impacts of tear gas are known to result in the irritation of the eyes and lungs, difficulty or inability to breathe, and loss of vision, among others. However, these effects have long-term impacts, and may result in more permanent harm on human health. Long-term impacts on vision include the development of glaucoma, eye scarring, and cataracts, and breathing problems, such as asthma, are also a concern. Extended exposure to these chemicals range from twenty to forty-two weeks, consistently show increased mortality among tested populations of lab animals. Extended human exposure is more likely to result in severe injuries, which includes permanent disability, requiring professional medical management, or even death. Further, different variants of tear gases are more likely to cause genetic mutation and other long-term health problems.

The adverse impacts on human health do not end with direct exposure alone (when sprayed or particles make contact with the person) as these gases linger in the environment after being dispersed. U.S. law enforcement makes use of tear gas that can stick to surfaces for several days, increasing the risk of exposure to people and the environment well after use. Chemicals used in tear gas often collect in groundwater and coat surfaces near where they are dispersed, leading to future contacts with people, animals, and the environment as a whole. Environments exposed to these chemicals often suffer from decreases in biodiversity, specifically the loss of animal populations in the areas affected. As the environment degrades, and biodiversity is lost, it is shown to increase the occurrence of disease as well as other negative impacts on human life in an indiscriminate manner. This impact on the environment violates peoples’ right to life, health, and adequate standards of living as it prohibits the full enjoyment of said rights. Exemplified by the contamination of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, Anna Feigenburg, PhD, explains that “tear gas contaminates agriculture and groundwater,” and has resulted in the poisoning of food and animals, “often causing them serious injury or death.”

Conclusion

As such, the United States’ use of chemical weapons via deployment of tear gasses and other substances is a clear violation of human rights. The United States’ use of chemical weapons against protestors violates the right against unjust punishment, and the right to peaceful assembly, life, health, and a healthy environment.

Long COVID, Assisted Suicide, and Capitalism: What’s a Society to Do?

By Anezka Krobot, 2L at St. Louis University School of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to billions around the world who have lost opportunities, loved ones, and even their lives to the disease. COVID has also created a new phenomenon that is difficult to predict for the long-term–long COVID. Long COVID, also known as post-COVID conditions, is a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems that people experience after being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. The most common symptoms are neurological, namely chronic fatigue (similar to the experience of people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome) as well as seemingly permanent loss of taste and smell. There are also heart and respiratory symptoms associated with long COVID. All these symptoms can result in someone having difficulty returning to work even after testing negative for COVID for quite some time. Some people with long COVID even have to quit their jobs and apply for disability.

This is the situation for a Canadian woman who recently made headlines for applying for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program (MAiD) citing long COVID as her reason. Tracey Thompson, a former professional chef in her 50s, has been rendered completely unable to work by her symptoms, and sees no other option than medically assisted death. After more than two years of lost income,, no foreseeable ability to work and an absence of support, Thompson said she expects to run out of money very soon. She said she was applying for the program exclusively for  “financial consideration,” and that her only option is to “die slowly and painfully, or quickly.”

MAiD expanded its criteria in March 2022 to include people with disabilities or those suffering from pain even if they are not close to death and will begin accepting applicants citing mental health disorders as their rationale, further broadening the already broad criteria. United Nations experts pushed back on the original expansion in January 2021, arguing that extending assisted dying to people with non-terminal conditions contravenes Article 10 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  “It is not beyond possibility that, if offered an expanded right as per Bill C-7, persons with disabilities may decide to end their lives because of broader social factors such as loneliness, social isolation, and lack of access to quality social services,” reads the letter sent by the United Nations experts to the government of Canada prior to the expansion.

Not only has Canada broadened its criteria for MAiD, but it has started to become more proactive in offering it to potential candidates. Disabled veteran and Paralympian Christine Gauthier, 52, testified before a Canadian veterans affairs committee that while she was attempting to gain government assistance in having a chair lift installed in her home that she received a letter from a veterans' affairs employee saying, “If you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAiD, medical assistance in dying.” The Veterans Minister indicated that there had been five similar reports but was quick to assure the committee that a single employee was the culprit, and that individual was now suspended. Still, this begs the question: what kind of culture has been created around MAiD that an employee felt comfortable offering assisted suicide to a person asking for mobility assistance? A wheelchair lift is a permanent addition to someone’s house and someone who wants to die would not invest that kind of time, effort, and money into acquiring such a permanent fixture.

The U.S. is more conservative than Canada in terms of medically assisted death – it is legal only in a few states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia, and is permitted only under extremely strict parameters. If Canada approves Thompson’s request, though, this may galvanize people in the U.S. suffering with long COVID or chronic mental illness to do the same here, seeing no way out. The economic effects of long COVID may even be exacerbated by living in the U.S., particularly given the difference in the healthcare system between the U.S. and Canada. The combined burdens of losing healthcare coverage along with one’s job, stacking medical bills, difficulty in acquiring disability pensions, and skyrocketing housing costs may result in now-disabled COVID victims feeling as though they have no other choice. Also, the isolation that accompanies COVID may be contributing to suicidal ideation in long COVID victims, which should not be overlooked. The issue of long COVID has already been used in debate over an assisted suicide bill in Connecticut in 2021, with proponents arguing that assisted suicide is preferable to the isolated deaths that many who died of COVID experienced. Though that bill did not pass at the time, a revised version has made it out of the Connecticut legislature’s Public Health Committee and to the public hearing stage as of March 2023.

The UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights states: “Persons living in poverty must be recognized and treated as free and autonomous agents. All policies relevant to poverty must be aimed at empowering persons living in poverty. They must be based on the recognition of those persons’ right to make their own decisions and respect their capacity to fulfill their own potential, their sense of dignity, and their right to participate in decisions affecting their lives.” The expansion of medically assisted death in Canada only pits impoverished people’s pain and suffering with economic needs, while giving them no support or methods by which their lives might improve. It is ableist, classist, and reminiscent of eugenics policies (especially if government officials continue to offer it unprovoked to disabled citizens merely seeking assistance) and should not become the model for medically assisted death going forward. Instead, governments should provide further economic and social assistance to disabled citizens to ensure that they are not forced into poverty by their medical circumstances. If disabled individuals are fully empowered in this way, their quality of life may improve such that medically assisted suicide is no longer their only option, and they can live fulfilling, successful lives, as is every human being’s right. 

New Article: Access to a Doctor, Access to Justice? An Empirical Study on the Impact of Forensic Medical Examinations in Preventing Deportations

Nermeen S. Arastu, Access to a Doctor, Access to Justice? An Empirical Study on the Impact of Forensic Medical Examinations in Preventing Deportations, 35 Harvard H.R.J. (2022). Abstract below.

Year after year, the United States has remained the world’s largest recipient of humanitarian-based immigration applications. Those seeking protection here must navigate a backlogged and increasingly restrictive system, oftentimes without access to counsel. Most individuals applying for humanitarian relief must prove that they survived egregious past harms or fear future harms if the United States were to deport them. In turn, immigration judges and Department of Homeland Security adjudicators act as gatekeepers, making daily decisions about whose pain and suffering is devastating enough to justify granting them status in the United States. For immigrants privileged enough to gain access to them, forensic medical evaluators can play a crucial role in immigration outcomes by documenting narratives of harm, bolstering credibility, and persuading adjudicators to grant relief. However, despite the exponential growth in medical-legal collaborations and requests for forensic medical evaluations in support of immigrants, there is little data about if and how forensic medical evidence impacts adjudicator decision making. The empirical study discussed in this Article—the largest-of-its-kind quantitative study of over 2,500 cases in which Physicians for Human Rights (“PHR”) facilitated medical evaluations on behalf of immigrants—found that 81.6% of individuals who received a forensic medical evaluation between 2008 and 2018 experienced some form of a positive immigration outcome. In comparison, immigration adjudictors only granted relief to asylum seekers an estimated 42.4% of the time overall during this same period. The significant impact of forensic medical evaluations in contributing to a favorable immigration outcome raises questions about whether adjudicators are holding immigrants to overly-stringent evidentiary standards by constructively creating norms that require immigrants to gain access to health professionals with the requisite training to evaluate them. To the extent such evaluations become essential to the successful outcome of the legal case, access to a medical evaluator may indeed translate into access to justice.

 

New Article: Professional Indifference?: How One Case Improves Protection for Immigrant Children in United States Detention Centers

Caitlin Fernandez Zamora, Professional Indifference?: How One Case Improves Protection for Immigrant Children in United States Detention Centers, 20 Nw. J. Hum. Rts. 239 (2022). Abstract below.

This Article discusses the case Doe 4 ex rel. Lopez v. Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center Commission. This case was a class action brought by unaccompanied immigrant children against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center Commission under § 1983 protection for adequate medical care. The plaintiff class alleged that, among other things, the Commission failed to (i) provide adequate mental health care due to punitive practices; and (ii) implement trauma-informed care. The plaintiffs were immigrant children who fled their native countries due to harrowing circumstances, many of whom struggled with severe mental illness. The district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment regarding the mental health care claim, which the plaintiffs appealed. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit considered which standard should be applied to analyzing a claim regarding the detention center’s level of mental health care. This Article explores the approach and impact of Doe 4, as a case of first impression for the Fourth Circuit and effectively for all circuits with regard to this class of immigrant children. Specifically, this Article discusses whether the majority opinion followed precedent or broke away from it in a way that properly embodies federal law and Constitutional guarantees. This Article also discusses the role of international law in United States courts, particularly related to protections for migrants and children. The Article ultimately concludes that the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Doe 4 was correct and explains why and how it should be further adopted and adapted by other federal courts, to promote an end to the professional indifference that the United States judicial system has normalized with regard to care for juveniles in detention centers.

Event 4/28: Data bias in health research: towards a comprehensive human rights framework

On April 28, 2022, from 12:45 – 2:10 PM ET, the Northeastern Law Center for Health Policy and Law and the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) will host an online event titled “Data bias in health research: towards a comprehensive human rights framework” with speaker Katharina Ó Cathaoir, Associate Professor in Law, University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law.

Politically and in scientific communities, there is increasing recognition that medicine can be biased. One cause is data gaps; with less clinical research on women, children, certain ethnic groups and older people, the medications and treatments offered sometimes do not achieve the intended clinical result because they have not been tested on a representative group. There is a risk that such biases and data gaps will be amplified through data driven medicine if artificial intelligence replicates existing biases. The talk will evaluate how the EU legal framework governing processing of health data accounts for the need to prevent and remediate biases focused on collection and use of health data for scientific research purposes using a human rights lens.

Join the event by clicking here (no pre-registration required): https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/93295781956

Texas Politicians Confuse Parental Support of Gender-Affirming Care with Child Abuse

By Bailey Bickford, 2L and Research Assistant at the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern Law

After two bills that would have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth in Texas did not pass the state’s legislature last year, Texas politicians took the matter into their own hands. Governor Greg Abbott (R), State Representative Matt Krause (R), and Attorney General Ken Paxton are plowing ahead and attempting to label gender-affirming care as child abuse under chapter 261 of the Texas Family Code.

In a February 18 opinion issued at the request of Representative Krause, Attorney General Paxton stated that puberty-blockers and hormone replacement therapy are not medically beneficial and can constitute child abuse under Texas law. In addition, he falsely equated gender-affirming care and non-consensual sterilization, claiming that these treatments deprive children of their fundamental right to procreate.

In response to Attorney General Paxton’s opinion, Governor Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to open child abuse investigations into the parents of children who are “subjected to these abusive gender-transitioning procedures.” He also ordered the investigation of medical facilities known to provide this care. Governor Abbott’s order has been condemned by organizations including The Texas Pediatric Society, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The National Association of Social Workers.

Neither Attorney General Paxton’s opinion nor Governor Abbott’s order are legally binding, and five Texas District Attorneys have publicly stated they will not enforce the order. While the opinion and order carry no legal weight, they increase already rampant transphobia and create more challenges for Texas youth who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Furthermore, the Attorney General and Governor’s actions have created panic among young people in Texas, who fear they will be separated from their loving and supportive families by the DFPS and lose access to the care they need from their doctors.

The ACLU has filed a law suit challenging Governor Abbott’s order to the DFPS. The plaintiffs include Mary Doe, a minor who has been undergoing gender-affirming care, her mother and father, and Dr. Megan Mooney, a psychologist whose clients include a number of trans youth in Texas. Mary Doe’s mother is employed by the DFPS and has been placed on leave while the family is investigated by her employer because of her daughter’s ongoing care. The ACLU argues that Governor Abbott’s order creates a Catch-22 for Dr. Mooney and others in her position. Under the Governor’s order, healthcare providers would face severe penalties for failing to report clients who come to them for gender-affirming care but stopping care and reporting these clients would violate ethical and professional obligations to cause no harm.

The ACLU’s petition also highlights the chilling effect of the Governor’s order. Parents feel unsafe sending their children to school or to the doctor’s office because they would encounter mandatory reporters, who are obligated to report “child abuse.”  Some doctors have ceased prescribing gender-affirming care for fear of the professional and criminal consequences. Texas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s largest pediatric hospital, has stopped providing gender-affirming care in response to the order.

On March 2, a Travis County judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) that enjoins the state from continuing the child abuse investigation of the Doe family, citing the irreparable harm that the investigation would cause the family. The TRO also enjoins the state from taking any action against Dr. Mooney. Attorney General Paxton promptly appealed the decision.

The Governor’s stated intention of protecting young Texans is intellectually dishonest. He desires to weaponize the DFPS and use it as a tool to break up families and send trans children into foster care, where their mental and physical health are virtually guaranteed to suffer. He further desires to coerce doctors into acting against their own ethical obligations. The Governor is using his position of power to promote a transphobic agenda that is traumatizing trans youth in his state.

Members of the cis-gendered male political elite seek to use their platforms to enshrine patriarchal norms into the legal system in order to protect their own privilege. A privilege that is seemingly so fragile that their enemy of choice is children.

Decisions about medically necessary and often life-saving gender-affirming care must be left to families and their doctors. LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in Texas, which will be working hard in the coming weeks to protect this principle, could use your support. The status of transgender individuals and the law varies state to state and issues such as access to gender-affirming care have become battle grounds in several states, including Texas and Arkansas.

Trans kids matter.

New Article: Mental Health as a Basic Human Right and the Interference of Commercialized Science

Lisa Cosgrove and Allen F. Shaughnessy, Mental Health as a Basic Human Right and the Interference of Commercialized Science, Health and Human Rights Journal (2020), https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2469/2020/06/Cosgrove.pdf. Abstract pasted below.

Although there is consensus that a rights-based approach to mental health is needed, there is disagreement about how best to conceptualize and execute it. The dominance of the medical model and industry’s influence on psychiatry has led to an over-emphasis on intra-individual solutions, namely increasing individuals’ access to biomedical treatments, with a resultant under-appreciation for the social and psychosocial determinants of health and the need for population-based health promotion. This paper argues that a robust rights-based approach to mental health is needed in order to overcome the effects of commercial interests on the mental health field. We show how commercialized science—the use of science primarily to meet industry needs—deflects attention away from the sociopolitical determinants of health, and we offer solutions for reform.

New Article: The Intellectual Property Turn in Global Health: From a Property to a Human Rights View of Health

Laura G. Pedraza-Fariña, The Intellectual Property Turn in Global Health: From a Property to a Human Rights View of Health, 36 Osiris 241 (2021), Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 21-20. Abstract below.

International intellectual property (IP) law for pharmaceuticals has fundamentally shifted in the twenty-first century from a property-centric to a human rights view. Scholars tend to explain this transformation in the context of both the power struggle between developing and developed countries, and the influence of a social movement that criticized IP rights as hindering access to essential medicines. Yet, these explanations leave out the central role of two international organizations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and particularly their permanent staffs, whose boundary disputes have shaped international IP law at the intersection of trade and global health. Bringing into conversation historical and legal literatures on global health and IP, this article traces how a human rights perspective on IP emerged as a strategy to reconcile the WHO staff’s sociomedical views of health with an increasingly dominant set of global IP rules. It shows how the WHO staff used the language of economics—an analytical frame favored by the WTO—to advance a then unorthodox economic understanding of IP as a type of governmental regulation. This allowed the WHO to argue that states should enjoy regulatory autonomy to curtail IP rights in order to meet broader state objectives, such as human rights protection. Paradoxically, despite their divergent views on the nature of IP, both WTO and WHO engagement with it heralded the emergence of a new technocratic view of global health that focuses on patentable medicines and technologies, and that has ultimately turned away from the WHO’s sociomedical roots.

Event: 7/14 Webinar on COVID-19 Access Through a Human Rights Lens

By Martha F. Davis, Co-Editor

Save the date for a webinar on July 14, 2021, at 10:00-11:30am Eastern US/16:00-17:30pm Central European, on COVID-19 vaccine access through a human rights lens, featuring UN Special Rapporteur Tlaleng Mofokeng, with Amanda Lyons (U Minn), Steven Jensen (Danish Institute), Brook Baker (Northeastern Law), and Morten Kjareum (RWI).  Register for the webinar using this link:  https://rwi.lu.se/events/covid-19-vaccines-for-the-few-how-to-ensure-the-right-to-health-for-all/.

The webinar marks the publication of the hot-off-the-presses book COVID-19 and Human Rights (Routledge): https://www.routledge.com/COVID-19-and-Human-Rights/Kjaerum-Davis-Lyons/p/book/9780367688035.  Topics addressed in the book include racial justice, land rights, access to medicines, the SDGs, rights of disabled persons, and many others, with a must-read introduction by Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty.

New Article: Pandemics and International Law: The Need for International Action

Claudio Grossman, Pandemics and International Law: The Need for International Action, Human Rights Brief, Vol. 24, Iss. 3, Art. 2 (2021). Excerpt below.

"This Article argues that, due to the experience of COVID-19, it is important that the ILC of the United Nations considers the adoption of a normative instrument whose purpose would be the regulation of pandemics – before, during, and after they occur.  There is a compelling need to act, stressing prevention and common reaction by the international community when these scourges occur, and the existing normative framework has shown its incapacity to organize the type of global mobilization that pandemics require.  This Article will first provide a brief background into relevant topics, and then it will summarize key issues noted during the November 18 conference. Lastly, it will conclude by providing a recommendation for further action."

Event: One Year On: Human Mobility and Human Rights in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Please Join the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School, the Migration and Human Rights Program at Cornell Law School, and the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, for a symposium on May 18-20^th, 2021, revisiting the 14 Principles of Protection for Migrants, Refugees and Other Displaced Persons.

This symposium marks the one year anniversary of the publication of the 14 Principles and will consist of a series of 45-minute sessions will explore how migrants, including refugees, have been particularly impacted by the pandemic and the new and emerging ways in which the human rights of these populations are likely to be challenged going forward. 

Register Here.

New Article: The COVID-19 Pandemic and International Law

Oona Hathway et al., The COVID-19 Pandemic and International Law, Cornell International Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2021). Abstract below.

How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect States’ obligations under international law? This is a question of not just academic interest but real importance for people’s lives. After all, whether States abide by international law—and whether international law is fit for purpose—is vitally important for everyone from refugees exposed to the virus in unsanitary detention centers to national leaders fighting disinformation campaigns and safeguarding vaccine supply chains. International law has been central to the world’s response to the pandemic from the start—even if the participants did not always realize it. International law, after all, required States to take certain actions to detect and prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Some governments responded quickly and effectively, significantly reducing the impact on their populations, but many others were far less successful. Many have made matters worse by responding to the virus in ways that exacerbated the toll on the most vulnerable populations, violating their international law obligations in the process. Moreover, some States have used the pandemic as an excuse for delaying elections or for denying arrested persons adequate legal representation. This Article examines the many ways in which COVID-19 is straining the rules and norms of international law. It considers the five main bodies of international law implicated by the pandemic: international humanitarian law, international human rights law, immigration and refugee law, international cyber law, and the rules and regulations of the World Health Organization. It outlines the obligations each body of law impose on States, and how those obligations apply during the current pandemic. It concludes with several proposals for reform to the international legal system so that the world can prepare to more effectively address the next inevitable pandemic.

Event: Virtual Symposium on International Law & COVID-19

On April 12 and 16, 2021, the University of Miami School of Law International and Graduate Law Programs and Human Rights Clinic, in collaboration with the Human Rights Society, Health Law Association, and University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review —will examine the impact of COVID-19 on international law through a virtual symposium. Speakers include:

• Claudio Grossman, Professor of Law, Dean Emeritus, Raymond I. Geraldson Scholar for International and Humanitarian Law, American University Washington College of Law; Member, UN International Law Commission
• Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing; Global Director, The Shift
• Charles C. Jalloh, Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law; Member, UN International Law Commission
• Antonia Urrejola Noguera, President, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
• Nilüfer Oral, Law Faculty, Istanbul Bilgi University; Member, UN International Law Commission  
• More

To register and for more information please visit: https://www.law.miami.edu/academics/clinics/human-rights-clinic/international-law-covid19-symposium

Disparate Treatment of COVID-19

By Khala Turner, 2L at St. Louis University School of Law

Amongst a unification of chaos and denial, society has been able to parse through the racial disparities that should be considered a violation of basic human rights in the aftermath of COVID-19. Human rights that are noted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to life, liberty and security of person; just and favorable conditions to work; and a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing. These human rights should not only be protected during COVID-19, but also should have been well established protections beforehand. As the number of people in Black communities across the globe who are diagnosed with COVID-19 continues to rise, the acts of disparity towards people of African descents grew rapidly. The ease and comfort of disparate treatment shows that racial inequity has unsuccessfully been challenged.

The risks for contracting COVID for racial and ethnic minority groups are higher due to factors such as occupation, housing, and discrimination as listed by the CDC. Growing and disproportionate unemployment rates for some racial and ethnic minority groups due to COVID-19 may lead to greater risk of eviction and homelessness, as well. When studies show disparities among racial and ethnic minority groups in COVID-19 testing, government officials and institutions should take responsibility to ensure no possible additional disparate treatment will occur. 

Racial and ethnic minorities should be concerned with the current approach to vaccine testing as well, considering historical events. During the search for medical knowledge, minorities have been historically exploited to get answers and used as Guinea pigs for testing purposes repeatedly. Consider the cases of Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Research on Lacks’ cells led to the development of the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and in vitro fertilization. Unfortunately Lacks never knew that her cells were taken for research purposes and her family wasn’t informed until twenty-five years after her death. Similarly, in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, there was no evidence that researchers informed the subjects of the study or its real purpose. The men were misled and not been given all of the facts required to provide informed consent. Throughout these experiments when consent and transparency were disconnected from subjects, authorities have displayed that all citizens do not have a right to life, liberty and security of person when medical research is involved.

Comparable to HeLa Cells and the Tuskegee Experiment research, COVID-19 has already exploited minority communities by allowing employees to expose themselves by performing essential work and destroying the right to a just and favorable condition to work. In the midst of COVID-19, authorities have released scarce means of financial support; institutions have exposed their foundational contributions to systemic racism as they do not place moratoriums on expenses and plan to send children back to educational facilities and as time progresses, many more issues that highlight racial disparities continue to unravel. While unemployment rates continue to rise, those that are forced to work to ensure that they are not evicted, means for electricity or water are not eliminated and money for food is constant then the exploitation begins to increase.

As minority communities are exploited, lives are lost, families are broken, and diseases run rampant causing more harm than good, and we must consider the generational issues that are the result of future “beneficial” medical research. Black communities have cried for help when it comes to medical treatment due to authorities dismantling trust with the lack of transparency. While looking for a COVID-19 vaccine, there should have been a shift whereas the right to life, liberty and security of person are protected with consent and transparency. The best method to protect minority and low-income communities is to allow community members similar opportunities to actively participate in medical facilities. A portion of the underrepresentation problem stems from the under-supply of minority students from public schools who are academically prepared to succeed as undergraduates and thus are able to apply successfully to medical schools.

The fundamental human rights that need protection are those that are feared by many, such as losing their adequate living standards for health and wellbeing or the possibility of being incarcerated due to truancy laws being broken by not sending their children to mandatory schooling. The fear of survival in communities where many are living paycheck to paycheck should not outweigh the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease that destroys communities much faster due to underlying systemic racist conditions. These human rights efforts should no longer begin when disparate deaths in minority communities and exposure to the virus continue to rise but should begin immediately. Authorities should be willing to review statistics and take proactive steps to ensure that exposure is low, transparency is available, and financial resources are provided.

To eliminate fears and protect society, months ago, governments should have immediately re-implemented mandatory lockdowns, expanded federal and state support for the unemployed to cover living expenses, and eliminated all non-essential travel, business and extracurricular activities. As we have seen in the last few weeks, the Biden Administration has taken small steps towards victory by passing the American Rescue Plan Act. These implementations are all important to the Black family, the minority and low-income communities. In the interim, authorities must work to ensure that healthcare costs, medical needs in all states and expenses related to alleviate COVID-19 through vaccination plans in medical facilitates are affordable or free. The initial perception behind the COVID-19 vaccination was to ensure minority communities were given the opportunity to receive the vaccine as the media questioned the lack of excitement from Black communities to sign up for it. Sadly, the socioeconomic disparities continue across the country as wealthier communities are gaining access to opportunities to vaccinate quicker than others. As people continue to travel from city to city to gain access to the vaccine, the hopes for the Biden Administration’s plan to have every consenting adult vaccinated by May 1^st are high. It is imperative that regulations are set in place to guide the actions of all State governments and vaccine locations.

In short, it is now time to continue overseeing actions and implement laws that will protect the human rights of minority communities such as being free from unfair treatment in housing and medical opportunities, and discrimination in education as children return to school. While these laws and policies may be perceived as infringing upon some people’s rights, this has never been the crux of the argument when infringing upon the rights of minorities or any low-income persons. If there is any time to continue to see a positive change in society, now is the time.

A Human Right many in the US take for granted . . .

An unusual monument to human rights sits in a corner of the Boston Public Garden in downtown Boston. 

The 40-foot-tall Ether Monument,installed in 1868, is the oldest monument in the garden.  It commemorates the first use of ether as an anesthetic, a pivotal moment in medical history.  A few blocks away from the monument, across the Boston Common and downhill toward the Boston harbor, the first public demonstration of ether anesthesia was conducted in the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846.   Boston dentist William Thomas Green Morton administered the ether, and doctor John Collins Warren then removed a tumor from an unconscious patient. 

The Ether Monument depicts this breakthrough through the imagery of two connected figures: the Good Samaritan, holding in his arms an injured stranger he met on the road.

This past human rights day, December 2019, the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists invited its members to submit essays considering the question:  Is anesthesia a human right?

The doctors who responded linked anesthesia not only to the human right to health but also to human dignity.

One doctor working in India wrote: "If healthcare is a human right does that mean anesthesia for surgery is also a human right?"  She concluded that "[a]ll of us have the right to life, liberty, and security but we also have the right to safe surgery which is only possible with the provision of safe anesthesia."  Another physician, practicing in Burkina Faso, observed that "[a]naesthesia makes it possible to eliminate pain, respect the patient’s dignity and facilitate adequate care."

In the U.S. today, many of us are accustomed to living with little or no pain, and if we do experience pain, we expect it to be addressed.  Pain-relieving substances of all kinds are readily available, and medical personnel are often eager to help patients by offering prescriptions.  Too much pain relief can be a bad thing if it's not needed, or if it has addictive qualities.  But the Ether Monument reminds us how debilitating pain can be, what a momentous event it was when the pain-relieving properties of ether were successfully tested, and how lucky those of us with adequate health care are to have access to the human right to pain relief.

Acknowledging World AIDS Day

This week celebrated World Aids Day. We celebrate that for many HIV/AIDS is a chronic condition that will not result in death from the condition.  And we celebrate the latest development that an Indian company has developed a strawberry flavored medicine that will provide infants with palatable, life-saving medication at the cost of only $1.00 per day.  

But very real ongoing human costs of AIDS/HIV exist.  Approximately 80,000 babies and toddlers die of AIDS yearly and 160,000 children are born with AIDS each year.  37.9 million people worldwide live with HIV or AIDS.  1.1 million of that number live in the United States.

We are fortunate that mortality rates are low and getting lower in the United States, particularly when compared with Africa.  But we need to acknowledge the ongoing struggles of those living with HIV/AIDS.  Approximately 37,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS diagnosed in 2018 in the US.   The increase in opioid use is a particular source of new infections among younger people. AIDS Alabama has announced a planned project that will provide homeless youth with safe shelter in Birmingham.  The residence will provide transitional housing, as well.  Safe housing will be a powerful tool against opioid use and the spread of AIDS.  Some living with HIV have no security of regular medical interventions.  Rural America is experiencing an increase in diagnoses, as well, but it is there that helpful resources are fewest.

Stigma still exists for those living with HIV/AIDS and discrimination reveals itself in employment, housing and other areas that impact daily living.  And criminalization of HIV/AIDS continues in many states.  So while medical advances have improved the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS, in the US we must be mindful of the stressors that impact the day to lives of those living with HIV/AIDS.  

We optimistically head toward the day where the conditions will be eliminated.  AIDS United projects 2050 as the year for reaching that goal.  Until that day we honor those who live with repercussions from discrimination that attaches to an HIV or AIDS diagnosis.  

 

The World Contemplates the State of AIDS

December 1st was world AIDS Day. 

Over 37,000 people in the US are newly diagnosed with HIV each year.  37 million people world wide are living with HIV or AIDS.  The opiod crisis has increased the number of new transmissions.  Women in abusive relationships are at increased risk for HIV.  Yet many perceive the problem as no longer a crisis in the US because of the effectiveness of treatment (Art).  But not everyone has access to treatment.  Transportation issues remain a huge barrier to treatment, particularly in rural areas.  The gutting of the affordable care act  exacerbates the problem.  A high percentage of men who have sex with men die from HIV/AIDS.

Those living with HIV experience workplace and housing discrimination, typically following the disclosure of private medical information. 

And criminally, those living with HIV are at risk for prosecution if they have sex without disclosing their medical condition to the partner, despite the fact that taking ART as prescribed virtually eliminates any risk of transmission.  Arrests and prosecutions under these criminal disclosure statues are disproportionately against people of color. 

While the public impression is that HIV and AIDS is no longer a critical problem, those living with HIV and AIDS tell very different stories.  For additional information on living with HIV here are just a few sources of information:  Positive Women's Network; Center for Disease Control;   and AIDS United.

 

 

A Literal Attack on the Press

The assault on the press continues.  Last week we posted about a reporter in North Carolina who was arrested after persistently asking  questions about health care to Health Secretary Tom Price.  

Health care seems to be a sensitive topic. On Wednesday, a Guardian reporter was body slammed by a Montana congressional candidate on the eve of the election.  Ben Jacobs reported that having asked the candidate about the Congressional Budget Office's estimates of over twenty million people who would lack health insurance under Trumpcare, candidate Greg Gianforte  slammed the reporter to the floor, breaking his glasses and injuring one of the reporter's elbows.

The lid is off of civil behavior.  The press, those charged with the responsibility to seek truth, are one of the first public casualties.  The Sheriff's office is investigating. The special election is happening now.

Warning:  Reporting can be dangerous to your health.

UPDATE:  On election morning Mr. Gianforte was charged with assault.  Fox News reporters corroborated Mr. Jacob's account of events.  

 

The Yogyakarta Principles and HIV Human Rights Advocacy

The Yogyakarta Principles for eliminating sexual identity and gender discrimination were written in 2006.  In 2010, an Activists Guide to the principles was published. The target audience for the guide is LBGTQ activists, with a secondary audience being academics and others interested in human rights implementation.  The principles themselves are directed toward the state, and in particular those creating and implementing policy.

Recently a global conference was held in Bangkok to discuss updating the principles by addressing any existing gaps.

Stephen Leonelli of the Men Who Have Sex with Men Global Forum, seeks to bring more awareness of HIV to the principles. At present, there are only two references to HIV contained in the principles.  Leonelli, who was a representative at the Bangkok meeting,  has written a critique of the principles from the perspective of what changes might be made in order to appropriately address HIV/AIDS. 

One of Leonelli's goals is to bring awareness to the collateral consequences of having HIV.  Often acknowledged are the public health concerns HIV raises.  But less appreciated are the impacts of criminalization, discrimination, violence and stigma.  To read more on Leonelli's suggestions for advancing HIV awareness through the Yogyakarta Principles, click here.

The revisions are scheduled to be completed this fall.