Groningen Centre for Health Law

Veronika Flegar and Brigit Toebes recently published an opinion piece on the current debate around minimum reception facilities for rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in the two Dutch newspapers Dagblad van het Noorden and Leeuwarder Courant.

A couple of months have passed since the CEC v the Netherlands ruling of the European Social Committee (ESC) on 10 November 2014 but the Netherlands is still hesitant to take steps to ensure basic social rights of undocumented migrants.

Deportation of persons with a medical condition: the Dutch National ombudsman criticizes the immigration authorities of the Netherlands for an insufficiently clear evaluation of the medical resources available in the country of origin. At the same time, Judge Pinto de Albuquerque points to the meager guidance of the European Court of Human Rights in that respect in his dissenting opinion to the recent case of S. J. v Belgium.

On 19 March the Department of International Law of the University of Groningen held its second case law discussion, organised by colleagues Monika Ambrus and Panos Merkouris.

On February 19, 2015, a group of experts in law, public health, security and medicines, met in Geneva under the auspices of the Global Health Law Committee of the International Law Association and the Global Health Programme of the Graduate Institute|Geneva.

In its judgment of 27 January 2015, the European Court of Human Rights dealt with  a prematurely born baby’s death in an ambulance, a few hours after birth, following the baby’s transfer between hospitals without being admitted for treatment.

The second event focuses on health sector corruption as an important issue of concern under international human rights law, health law, and global health governance. This session seeks to provide various legal and practical responses to the problems of corruption in the health systems.

The International Development Law Organization(IDLO) seeks an inter to provide support to its health law research ad programs.

On 19 February the first meeting of the Global Health Law Committee of the International Law Association will take place in Geneva. The Committee is Chaired by Professor Frederic Abbott and Dr Brigit Toebes. The meeting will focus on ‘health security’ as an important theme under global health law, and will in this context discuss the challenges posed by the recent ebola crisis.

The recent Ebola crisis has caused approximately 11.000 deaths so far. Compared to other global health crises, including the deaths caused by armed conflicts and chronic diseases, this is still a small amount. Yet, from a global and domestic health law and governance perspective, this crisis raises a number of vital questions and challenges, which were also addressed during a recent SHARES debate organised by the University of Amsterdam.