Working Group: Advancing Global Health and Human Rights

By: Erin Kim (2L) and Aimee Veiner (2L)

Leads: Erin Kim (2L), Aimee Veiner (2L)

Members: Sahaab Bajwa (3L), Beth Boyle (2L), Vidit Desai (1L), Monica Gill (2L), Ariel Gorodensky (1L),  Cindy Lin (1L), Abhinav Mynampati (1L), Joel Seifert (1L), Nicholas Slawnych (1L)

What is the objective of your working group?

This working group contributes to the Global Health and Human Rights Database (“the Database”), which catalogs case law, national constitutions, and international and regional instruments relating to health and human rights by contributing summaries of judgments concerning health-related rights. The Database was developed by the Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. It was the first initiative to create a comprehensive collection of health and human rights judgements. The Database includes case law, national constitutions, and international and regional instruments. It aims to promote the right to health by providing a resource for litigation concerning health-related rights and comparative legal analysis.  

What kind of work are members of your working group engaged in?

Working group members are responsible for conducting research to identify two to three cases and categorizing them on the basis of relevant health-related rights in the context of the international right to health framework developed by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in General Comment No. 14 and health topics as described in the framework developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). As the Database is intended to be a resource for practitioners and scholars around the world, an important aspect of the work involves making sure the summaries are written in a clear and concise way while providing the necessary information to effectively understand the judgment. 

What is the current relevance of your working group?

The Database was initially established to address the increasing use of international, regional, and domestic cases to interpret rights in health-related litigation. In 2023, the Database has a particularly relevant role in light of the amount of litigation that arose over the past couple of years in relation to COVID-19. We see courts utilizing judgments from other jurisdictions regarding similar challenges related to public health measures during the pandemic. In this way, the Database supports practitioners by collecting and categorizing judgments concerning new and emerging health-related matters.