The Spirit of Human Rights: Universal Health Coverage in Makueni County, Kenya.

In view of the United Nations' goal to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, this paper investigates MakueniCare, the highly successful UHC program in Makueni County, Kenya, to reveal the spirit of human rights underlying it. Drawing on international, Kenyan, and Makueni County law and policy, as well as 30 interviews with government and civil society leaders in health care policy and programming at the national and county levels, we examine the human rights law and principles that underlie the adoption and implementation of MakueniCare. We first set out key human rights principles grounded in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the 2010 Kenyan Constitution, and then describe the research design and methodology of the project.

Crises as Catalyst: A New Social Contract Grounded in Worker Rights.

Three crises-climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme economic and social inequality-intersect and have had devastating impacts on workers' rights to health, as well as the right to decent work, an underlying determinant of health. Yet these crises may act as catalysts, as responses present opportunities for transformation. Indeed, multiple international governance institutions and nongovernmental organizations have proposed new social contracts that aim to address the multiple challenges facing workers today.

A Right-to-Health Lens on Perinatal Mental Health Care in South Africa.

South African women experience some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety globally. Despite South Africa's laudable human rights commitments to mental health in law, perinatal women are at high risk of common mental disorders due to socioeconomic factors, and they may lack access to mental health services. We used a right to mental health framework, paired with qualitative methods, to investigate barriers to accessing perinatal mental health care.

The Challenge of Interdisciplinarity in Operationalizing the Right to Health.

Interdisciplinary collaboration between the health and human rights communities is essential to operationalize the right to health. In practice, however, such collaboration has been infrequent. As noted by Jonathan Mann et al.

Engaging Human Rights Norms to Realize Universal Health Care in Massachusetts, USA.

Massachusetts is a national leader in health care, consistently ranking in the top five states in the United States. In 2006, however, only 86% of adults aged 19-64 had health insurance. That year, Governor Romney signed into law An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care.

Challenging Neoliberalism: ILO, Human Rights, and Public Health Frameworks on Decent Work.

In the 2008 report , the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) described "fair employment and decent work" as components of daily living conditions that have "powerful effects on health." The CSDH therefore proposed far-reaching structural changes to bring about decent work and health for all. Crucially, however, it failed to acknowledge two relevant international legal frameworks, the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the right to decent work in international human rights law.

Neglected Population, Neglected Right: Children Living with HIV and the Right to Science.

The laws, language, and tools of human rights have been instrumental in expanding access to lifesaving treatment for people living with HIV. Children, however, remain a neglected population, as evidenced by inadequate child-specific and child-friendly HIV treatment options. In this article, we explore the right to science, a potentially powerful but underdeveloped right in international law, and its application to research and development for pediatric HIV treatment.

Mechanisms of Accountability for the Realization of the Right to Health in China.

China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2001. It thus bears obligations under Article 12 of the covenant to take appropriate measures at the domestic level to realize the right to health in China. Accountability is an important component of the right to health.

The Impact of Human Rights on Universalizing Health Care in Vermont, USA.

In 2010, Vermont adopted a new law embracing human rights principles as guidelines for health care reform, and in 2011, Vermont was the first state in the US to enact framework legislation to establish a universal health care system for all its residents. This article reports on the Vermont Workers' Center's human rights-based approach to universal health care and the extent to which this approach influenced decision makers. We found the following: (1) by learning about the human right to health care and sharing experiences, Vermonters were motivated to demand universal health care; (2) mobilizing Vermonters around a unified message on the right to health care made universal health care politically important; (3) using the human rights framework to assess new proposals enabled the Vermont Workers' Center to respond quickly to new policy proposals; (4) framing health care as a human right provided an alternative to the dominant economics-based discourse; and (5) while economics continues to dominate discussions among Vermont leaders, both legislative committees on health care use the human rights principles as guiding norms for health care reform.

Human Rights Impact Assessment: A Method for Healthy Policymaking.

Two decades ago, Lawrence Gostin and Jonathan Mann developed a methodology for human rights impact assessment (HRIA) of proposed public health policies. This article looks back over the last 20 years to examine the development of HRIA in the health field and consider the progress that has been made since Gostin and Mann published their pioneering article. Health-related HRIA has advanced substantially in three ways.

The value of mainstreaming human rights into health impact assessment.

Health impact assessment (HIA) is increasingly being used to predict the health and social impacts of domestic and global laws, policies and programs. In a comprehensive review of HIA practice in 2012, the authors indicated that, given the diverse range of HIA practice, there is an immediate need to reconsider the governing values and standards for HIA implementation [1]. This article responds to this call for governing values and standards for HIA.

Untangling equality and non-discrimination to promote the right to health care for all.

Equality and non-discrimination are core principles in international human rights law, and all members of the United Nations have legal obligations to promote these principles. Although widely adopted into law, interpretations of the rights to equality and non-discrimination, as well as their relationship to each other, vary considerably across jurisdictions. At the international level, there are separate provisions on equality and non-discrimination in the human rights treaties, yet legal scholars tend to treat the two concepts as one.