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Human rights begin at birth: international law and the claim of fetal rights.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation of human rights, the text and negotiating history of the "right to life" explicitly premises human rights on birth. Likewise, other international and regional human rights treaties, as drafted and/or subsequently interpreted, clearly reject claims that human rights should attach from conception or any time before birth. They also recognise that women's right to life and other human rights are at stake where restrictive abortion laws are in place. This paper reviews the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Inter-American Human Rights Agreements and African Charter on Human and People's Rights in this regard. No one has the right to subordinate another in the way that unwanted pregnancy subordinates a woman by requiring her to risk her own health and life to save her own child. Thus, the long-standing insistence of women upon voluntary motherhood is a demand for minimal control over one's destiny as a human being. From a human rights perspective, to depart from voluntary motherhood would impose upon women an extreme form of discrimination and forced labour.

Congresses as Topic↗

Poverty and Health: Debt Relief Could Help Achieve Human Rights Objectives.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly emphasizes health as a human right. Poverty and social exclusion are the most important drivers of ill-health. The causes of increasing poverty are complex but one significant factor is international debt. This affects mainly sub-Saharan Africa but, with the global economic crisis in South East Asia, may spread. Structural adjustment policies which cut social spending compound the health effects of debt and poverty. Privatization of health care and user charges particularly affect women, children, the disabled, and other marginalized communities. To improve health, governments and international institutions have a duty to examine the determinants of health, including human rights and economic policy.

Journal Article↗

HIV and AIDS stigma violates human rights in five African countries.

The situation and human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were explored through focus groups in five African countries (Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania). A descriptive qualitative research design was used. The 251 informants were people living with HIV and AIDS, and nurse managers and nurse clinicians from urban and rural settings. NVivo software was used to identify specific incidents related to human rights, which were compared with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The findings revealed that the human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were violated in a variety of ways, including denial of access to adequate or no health care/services, and denial of home care, termination or refusal of employment, and denial of the right to earn an income, produce food or obtain loans. The informants living with HIV and AIDS were also abused verbally and physically. Country governments and health professionals need to address these issues to ensure the human rights of all people.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Will international human rights subsume medical ethics? Intersections in the UNESCO Universal Bioethics Declaration.

The International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is currently drafting a Universal Bioethics Declaration ("the declaration"). The content and even the name of the declaration has yet to be finalized, but it is expected to range widely over human and non-human bioethics. It appears likely to include many articles directly related to medical ethics. The declaration may well evolve, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, into a component of international customary law, or be the precursor to an International Convention on Bioethics. This article discusses whether this process will facilitate bioethics and, in particular, medical ethics, being subsumed by the normative system of international human rights.

Bioethics↗

The Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights.

Since 1985, UNESCO studies ethical questions arising in genetics. In 1992, I established the International Bioethics Committee at UNESCO with the mission to draft the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which was adopted by UNESCO in 1997 and the United Nations in 1998. The Declaration relates the human genome with human dignity, deals with the rights of the persons concerned by human genome research and provides a reference legal framework for both stimulating the ethical debate and the harmonization of the law worldwide, favouring useful developments that respect human dignity.

Codes of Ethics↗

Health care as a natural right.

Health care is recognized as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by the World Health Organization's Declaration on the Rights of Patients. This article demonstrates that this concept of a 'right' to health care draws strong support from leading modern works on natural law and justice and responds to the arguments, both theoretical and practical, put forward against this proposition. It concludes with two warnings: (a) Even in a system where health care is said to be a right, this can be meaningless if the system does not promote basic health, fails to set proper legal and ethical controls or ignores the important individual rights of patients. (b) Our primary commitment must be to those persons who are denied access to health care. To them, talk of patient's individual rights is superfluous. They cannot claim such rights if they are denied the more fundamental right to be a patient.

Ethics↗

Medical care for people under detention.

Human Rights traditionally refer to rights and freedom that are inherent to every human being. They are based on Human Rights Law and concern the respect for dignity and worth of a person. These rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible, inter-related and interdependent. Members of Societies are detained for varied reasons and are made up of different age groups and gender. The United Nations through its numerous agencies, associated Conventions, Treaties and Resolutions have laid down guidelines that govern the rights of those under detention. Article 5 of General Assembly Resolution 45/111 clearly stipulates that except for those limitations that are demonstrably necessitated by the fact of incarceration, all prisoners shall retain the human rights and fundamental freedom set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As such, the Medical and Health Care of People under Detention should not be any different from the other members of societies. The Right to Health and Medical Care is stipulated under various Articles contained in the UN Bill of Human Rights (UDHR, ICCPCR and ICESCR) as well as other Conventions, e.g. Convention against Torture (CAT), Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention for the Extinction of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The United Nations have also developed specific guidelines and instruments for Treatment of People under Detention. These include the General Assembly Resolution 45/111 December 1990 elucidating the Basic Principles for Treatment of Prisoners, ECOSOG resolution 663C and 2076 regarding the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners which covers rules pertaining to accommodation and Medical Services, General Assembly Resolution 37/194 on Principles of Medical Ethics relevant to the role of health personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Delivery of Health Care↗

The UDHR in National and International Law.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been the foundation of much of the post-1945 codification of human rights, and the international legal system is replete with global and regional treaties based, in large measure, on the Declaration. Pending universal ratification of the Covenants and other treaties, it is to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that most people will look to find the minimum rights to which they are entitled. This article sets out the status of the Declaration in national and international law, and gives examples of international and national provisions protecting the right to health. Legally, politically, and morally, the Universal Declaration remains even more significant today than when it was adopted a half-century ago.

Journal Article↗

Human Rights and torture.

1998 marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that all peoples are born free and equal and sets out the basic principles of equality and nondiscrimination in the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms and human rights. Yet, despite the many covenants and conventions stemming from this declaration and signed by nations around the world, human rights continue to be violated by powerful groups, by individuals, often even by family members. On 26 June, which has been declared UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, attention will be focused on torture--a grave violation of a person's human rights still practised in its many insidious forms in many countries. INR reviews the work of the organizations trying to help stop the perpetrators and participation of health professionals; rehabilitate the survivors; and educate health professionals and the public.

Education↗

The United States and the universality of human rights.

The United States takes a highly relativistic stance toward the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It regards the socio-economic rights and the right to development as without status; exempts itself from all provisions of the Declaration by failing to sign the conventions designed to implement these provisions; and unilaterally qualifies its support of civil and political rights. Leading recipients of U.S. aid have traditionally included regimes with atrocious human rights records. Those struggling for human rights should have no illusions about the systems of power and their servants.

Health Policy↗

Ethics and triage.

A disaster is characterized by an imbalance between needs and supplies. In circumstances in which there occur mass casualties, it is not possible to provide care for all of the victims. Thus, it may be necessary to triage the casualties according to pre-established priorities. The performance of triage is associated with many ethical issues. Currently, no Europe-wide agreement on triage and ethics exists. One system based on a categorization into four groups is proposed. Triage should be avoided whenever possible, but, when it is required, there is an obligation to respect human rights and the humanitarian laws, especially with reference to the Geneva Convention of 1864 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The condition of informed consent must be followed, even in mass casualty situations. Triage always must follow established medical criteria and cannot be based on any other principles. Triage implies constant re-evaluation of victims as conditions of the victims and of available resources change continuously. In order to facilitate international coordination and cooperation, a universal classification system must be adopted.

Disaster Planning↗

The right to health fifty years on: still skeptical?

The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a crucial step in the recognition of a legal right to health. Although the past 50 years have revealed weaknesses in the Declaration, it has been an important catalyst for social and legal change worldwide and for new thinking about public health. Recently, the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic has taught us that protecting the human rights of those most at risk is, in fact, a most effective means of preventing the spread of HIV. Traditional public health problems, as well as those involving new biotechnologies, must today be addressed with specific attention to human rights.

Bioethics↗

The quest for universality: reflections on the Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.

This essay focuses on two underlying presumptions that impinge on the effort of UNESCO to engender universal agreement on a set of bioethical norms: the conception of universality that pervades much of the document, and its disregard of structural inequalities that significantly impact health. Drawing on other UN system documents and recent feminist bioethics scholarship, we argue that the formulation of universal principles should not rely solely on shared ethical values, as the draft document affirms, but also on differences in ethical values that obtain across cultures. UNESCO's earlier work on gender mainstreaming illustrates the necessity of thinking from multiple perspectives in generating universal norms. The declaration asserts the 'fundamental equality of all human beings in dignity and rights'(1) and insists that 'the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition'(2) yet it does not explicitly recognize disparities of power and wealth that deny equal dignity and rights to many. Without attention to structural (as opposed to merely accidental) inequities, UNESCO's invocation of rights is so abstract as to be incompatible with its avowed intention.

Bioethical Issues↗

[A world tailored for children and the young. The children and the young around us and the child and the adolescent within each of us].

UNLABELLED: Towards the end of the nineteenth century in America, a court that normally dealt with animal abuse found itself facing a very special problem: it had to discuss for the very first time a case of child abuse. It might seem a paradox to many that a matter of this nature should be discussed in a court set up for a quite different purpose, but it was not an error arising out of the lack of room in the civil court nor an error of competency: it happened to be the only place judged to be appropriate to discuss the rights of a child, mistreatment of whom was handled on a par with abuse of animals. In spite of the section expressly dedicated to children in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1789, the world had to wait for the Geneva Convention of 1924 before the first declaration of children's rights was promulgated. There were five main principles: the right to a healthy psychophysical development, the right to be nourished, cared for, returned to a normal life if demoralised, looked after and aided in the case of orphans. But only with the international Convention of children's rights of New York in 1989 was it possible to draft a text for the full, more comprehensive protection of infancy, two centuries after the first pronouncement on the occasion of the universal declaration of human rights. Two centuries of struggles and growing awareness of the problem of children (and at the same time of women and mothers) in the world, two centuries that have produced all over the world the complete idea of the child as having rights and being an active part of contemporary society. But the examination of the current situation brings us to the main problem: if a virtuous circle is not established between rights, infant culture and duties of adults, then the declarations of this century will have to wait many years more before becoming a practical part of our society. What then should be done to make sure that the declarations and conventions on rights do not remain a mere expression of principles? There can be no evolution in children's living conditions, nor protection of their rights, if we do not create a culture of infancy based on two premises: the rights of children and the duties of adults with respect to children. Today an exact and comprehensive knowledge of the rights of children is necessary above all starting with their right to freedom, experience, opinion, equal opportunity for development and education, defence against all types of abuse, and their right to a family. But at the same time it is necessary to act in the area of the duties of parents and adults: the question is one of building up a cultural system that includes the rights whereby the prerogatives of children are matched with corresponding duties of adults, a culture of values that responsibilises adults by way of a process of personal awareness and parent training. The adult must find himself personally in harmony in his relationship with life so as not to compromise on child training: the idea of a vulnerable future must be avoided; a future that is insecure and defenceless for children and adolescents who are future adults. A third factor must cater for this, namely modern society whose task it is to build structures (interconnected by means of an interdisciplinary project and through the possibility that modern technology also offers them) to supply opportunities and laws that favour and protect the personality of both child and adult. In this case considerable value would be taken on by the drafting of a "Charter of Duties of adults with respect to children and adolescents" that favours the birth of new standards and national and international conventions aimed at a new conception of society understood as a set of several parts, children, adolescents, adults, each subject of rights. By this approach the commitment of individual associations, organisations and institutions would start a process of social development which as of today is the last and on]y real revolution possible to improve the conditions of life of the person as such, and not the person as such, and not only of the person as a citizen of one nation or another. IN CONCLUSION: no development is possible if we do not take steps as an international community to protect the first citizens of the world who are and always will bc children. 1n this sense, psychoanimation, which is a psychopedagogic-cultural intervention methodology based on a holistic approach and employs cognitive, creative, corporeal techniques to foster, in the individual and in the group, that ''growth'', that "awareness'', that "responsibility'' which have their "roots'' in self-awareness and in the possibility of acquiring cultural instruments that are scientifically and humanistically suitable to ''act'' individually and collectively, the "change'' in human societies sets itself the diffusion of a Culture of Infancy and of Adolescence as an objective. In fact for Psychoanimation that means: (''give soul to the soul'' employing all languages in interdisciplinary fashion for communication and social integration) in order to authentically permit knowledge, communication and exchange among human beings) the last ''possible revolution" is that connected with the success, all over the world, of a Culture of Infancy and of Adolescence. What is the possibility that this converts into: ''a world made to the measure of children'': the children around us and the chi]d within us!

Adolescent↗