THE US SUPREME COURT OVERRULED ROE V. WADE, AND HELD THAT THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO ABORTION
Date:02 November 2022
Dean M. Harris - Former US President Donald Trump is out of the White House--at least for now. However, one of his legacies is an extremely right-wing Supreme Court. With its new right-wing majority, the Supreme Court overruled the longstanding abortion precedent of Roe v. Wade . On June 24, 2022, the Court held that the US Constitution does not include a right of access to abortion. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org ., 142 S.Ct. 2228 (2022). Therefore, state governments may prohibit or severely restrict abortion, as many states have already done.
Learning the Lessons of the COVID-19 Pandemic: introducing the Human Rights Principles for Public Health Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response
Date:20 October 2022
Gabriel Armas-Cardona - One of the major questions we are asking ourselves now is what have we, as policymakers, as global health actors, as humanity, learned from the pandemic. There has been a deluge of scientific research on COVID-19 in the last 2.5 years, vastly increasing our knowledge of the disease and its impacts. But, have we incorporated the lessons learned into global and domestic policy?
Call for Contributions ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
Date:10 October 2022
Suliyat Omotolani Olapade - At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, some high-income countries (HICs) enacted laws and undertook other measures that resulted in restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines and related commodities in low-income countries (LICs). It was reported, for example, that the United Kingdom enacted laws to prevent the exportation of essential medicines, the European Union curbed exports of hospital supplies, and the USA restricted PPE [personal protective equipment] exports.
Public health in a post-Covid(?) world: the Dutch edition
Date:04 October 2022
Pepijn Tukker & Dominique Mollet - For the past two years, there has been increased attention for (public) health-related topics among policy makers. However, due to new global crises, such as the war in Ukraine, Covid-19 is no longer the headliner of daily news and newspapers, and policymakers’ focus is shifting away: public health appears to lose its momentum as a topic for discussion.
De multidisciplinaire aanpak van zoönosen
Date:15 July 2022
Thom Geertsema - Het onlangs gepresenteerde ‘Nationaal actieplan versterken zoönosenbeleid’ van de Ministeries van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS) en Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit (LNV) is een goede stap om het gevaar en de risico’s van zoönosen onder de aandacht te brengen. Het nationaal actieplan zoals dat er nu ligt is ambitieus. Dit komt mede vanwege de diverse partijen met elk hun eigen rol in de aanpak van zoönosen. Het is daarom zeker een stap vooruit om deze kwestie vanuit een One Health benadering aan te pakken.
Tobacco, law and human rights: taking stock
Date:30 May 2022
Brigit Toebes - On 12-13 May, the Groningen Centre for Health Law and the European Scientific Network on Law and Tobacco organized a conference entitled ‘Tobacco, Law and Human Rights’. The event marked the finalization of our project funded by the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) entitled ‘the rights of children to a tobacco-free environment’, which started in 2016.
Right to a Healthy and Peaceful Life: An Attempt of Japanese Citizens to Stop the Construction and Operation of Coal-Fired Power Plants
Date:02 May 2022
Yumeno Grace Nishikawa - This blog post aims to demonstrate how Japanese citizens try to protect their health from harmful emissions by claiming the right to a healthy and peaceful life by discussing the arguments made in Citizens’ Committee on the Kobe Coal-Fired Power Plant v. Kobe Steel Ltd., et al., which is currently pending before the Kobe District Court.
Attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine constitute violations of international law – they must stop
Date:10 March 2022
Brigit Toebes - Several sources have reported attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine, including a children’s hospital, causing numerous deaths and injuries. [...] In this post I argue that such attacks constitute violations of human rights, international humanitarian law, and medical ethical standards.
Blog coalitieakkoord #2: De schrijnende afwezigheid van een integrale volksgezondheidsbenadering
Date:18 January 2022
Brigit Toebes - Het is daarom des te verwonderlijker dat het coalitieakkoord het voeren van een integraal volksgezondheidsbeleid niet tot haar absolute prioriteit heeft gemaakt.
Road traffic accidents in Africa, corruption, and the right to health
Date:10 January 2022
Michael Woldeyes - As most African countries are State Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (hereafter ICESCR) and other human rights treaties, they are obliged under the right to health to step up efforts towards reducing RTAs by acting against corruption. This blogpost discusses how RTAs and corruption are issues of health law and what African countries are required to do to curb the problem.