Global Health and Human Rights Seminar

This seminar aims to provide law students with the theoretical background and research skills necessary to conduct research, collaborate with medical and public health workers, and participate in legal advocacy in the field of health and human rights. The seminar will begin by laying a foundation of empirical knowledge of global health status, emphasizing the leading causes of ill health and premature mortality, global health disparities, and the influences of social, economic, political, and gender-related factors on health. With this foundation students will explore interactions between health and human rights in three principal domains: (1) the impact of human rights abuses on health, (2) the right to health in international human rights law, and (3) the impact of health policies and practices on human rights. Students will become familiar with the health-related provisions in the major international and regional human rights documents, and how they have been used—successfully and unsuccessfully—to improve people’s social and physical wellbeing, especially in the poorest, least developed regions of the world.

This course is required for students in the Global Health and Human Rights Track within the Health Law Certificate Program.