Groningen Centre for Health Law

The Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and global negotiations are underway to finalise the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Much activism has occurred encouraging a post-2015 health and development goal embedded in the highest attainable standard of health (‘right to health’). Despite this, the right to health was absent in three key post-2015 intergovernmental Sustainable Development Goal proposals in 2014, one of which was reinforced by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2014 as the guiding document for ongoing interstate negotiations. This article examines why it appears the right to health, so far, is not gaining direct expression in post-2015 discussion.

Due to the consistently high inflow of asylum seekers, tensions are rising in several European countries. Germany is especially challenged to provide basic reception rights in accordance with international human rights standards.

In 2012, Spain adopted significant legislative changes with regard to the universal right to health care. Due to these changes, the universal right to health care is currently at risk. In order to allow for a better understanding of the relevance of these measures, I will briefly outline the evolution of the Spanish National Healthcare System (NHS) as well as the recent changes.

If you have any great content that would like to share with other readers, we have some good news! From now on, we will be accepting guest blog posts and we would like to encourage all of you to write something for our blog!!!

The Economist of August 15th 2015 reports that globally, Caesarian sections are on the rise. The most extreme example is Brazil, where in 2013 57% of births were by Caesarian section.

A recent NY Times investigative report, and a report entitled “Blowing Smoke for Big Tobacco,” documented how the US Chamber of Commerce has defended the interests of tobacco companies overseas.

Does the right to health embrace claims to public health? And how should we exercise such claims? In international law there are many references to the protection of public health contrasting with other interests, including the interests of trade, commerce, intellectual property protection, transportation, and warfare.

The Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany) will host an international conference for young scholars from Germany and The Netherlands on the topic “Beneficial coercion in medicine? Foundations, areas of conflict, prevention” (15-19 February 2016 in Bochum, Germany) which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Please find the link at the bottom for the 2nd Call for papers for the U4 Conference Cluster Social Sciences, Economics and Law for 4- 6 November 2015, coordinated by Globalisation Studies Groningen (GSG) and Sustainable Society with the theme “Governance of Contemporary Multilateral Institutional Architecture”.

New course ‘International Health Law’ as part of LLM International Human Rights Law at University of Groningen