Groningen Centre for Health Law

Dr van Es is also active in health related human rights advocacy.  Learn more from the video below as part of our interview series, Voices in the Field*

In the following video, Simons joins Voices in the Field* to discuss his time working in a Sudanese refugee camp and with Romanian political prisoners, and to share one important message with colleagues and decision makers.

On 30 January the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced the first ever amendment to the TRIPS Agreement under the headline WTO members welcome entry into force of amendment to ease access to medicines.

As an expert in global health, access to essential medicines, pharmaceutical policy, and human rights, Prof. Hogerzeil has much to add to the health and human rights discussion as a contributor to Voices in the Field.

In this interview, Henriette Roscam Abbing tells us about her past career and reflects on the future of health law. This interview is the first publication from the series ‘Voices in the field,’ a joint endeavour by GHLG and IFHHRO.

At the time of writing there is a remarkable case pending in the Netherlands concerning the effects of air pollution on the health of the population. Two foundations and 57 individual plaintiffs have launched a case against the Dutch State in which they ask the court to order the State to reduce air pollution below the European maxima to the norms set in the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on air quality. If the case is successful, this will have significant consequences for the government as it will be ordered to protect the health of its citizens in a more effective manner by improving air quality. What are the chances of the plaintiffs succeeding in winning the case?

Given the global context (i.e., the Syrian crisis and other humanitarian crises) Greece in virtue of being one of the frontier States of the EU (i.e., one of the main entry points to the EU) experiences a sustained pressure over the course of the last years as regards to the number of refugees mainly arriving from Middle East under difficult and most of the times degrading circumstances.

In 2014, the largest and by far most serious outbreak of Ebola occurred since the virus was first detected in 1976. With an overall death toll of 11.300, there were more cases and deaths in this outbreak than in all others combined. The disease quickly spread between countries, starting in Guinea and then spreading to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Globally, millions of people suffer health and socio-economic related problems due to the unavailability of controlled essential medicines such as morphine for pain treatment, which leaves them in disabling and sometimes degrading situations. Controlled essential medicines are medicines included in the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, and whose active substance is listed under the international drug-control treaties. Their availability and accessibility therefore fall within the remit of both human rights and international drug-control law. Even though the unavailability of controlled essential medicines is generally caused by a multifaceted and complex interplay of factors, the current international drug-control framework paradoxically hinders rather than fosters the access to medicines.

As I write this, the inauguration of a new U.S. president will be held in a few days. Many people outside the United States might experience the adverse consequences that the U.S. election is likely to have on global public health. At the European Public Health Conference in Vienna shortly after the election, one of the speakers, David Stuckler, described the new U.S. president as a “direct threat to public health.”