Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 21 March 2025
Philippines’ Duterte faces crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court
Former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested and extradited on 11 March following the ICC’s warrant and charges of a crime against humanity due to his administration’s ‘war on drugs’ in which as many as 30,000 people were killed. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas who were gunned down in the streets. Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said this is ‘a long-awaited and monumental step for justice for the thousands of victims and survivors’ of Duterte’s deadly campaign that operated from 2011 to 2019. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk today welcomed the announcement as a very important step towards seeking accountability for the thousands of victims of killings and other abuses.
See also:
The Politics of Drug Rehabilitation in the Philippines, Gideon Lasco and Lee Edson Yarcia, Vol 24/1, June 2022
Disease and epidemics the only winners in Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ Jonas Bagas, December 2016
UN Experts warn Israel over aid blockades
UN Experts, including Tlaleng Mofokeng, the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, addressed Israel’s most recent blockade of humanitarian aid and breach of ceasefire agreement in Gaza. The experts called on the ceasefire’s mediators to act to preserve the agreement, describing renewed violence and suspension of humanitarian aid as ‘unlawful and utterly inhumane’.
Sexual violence by Israeli forces “more than a human can bear”
“Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She said there is evidence of a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence. The Commission found that Israeli forces have systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza. “These acts violate women’s and girls’ reproductive rights and autonomy, as well as their right to life, health, founding a family, human dignity, physical and mental integrity, freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and self-determination and the principle of non-discrimination”.
See also:
Special Section on Settler Colonialism, Structural Racism, and the Palestinian Right to Health, December 2022, Vol 24/2
“It’s Not Whatever, Because This is Where the Problem Starts”: Racialized Strategies of Elimination as Determinants of Health in Palestine, Benjamin Bouquet, Rania Muhareb, and Rhona Smith, December 2022 Vol 24/2
Case against restrictive Idaho abortion law dropped
The US Justice Department (DOJ) has withdrawn its case against the State of Idaho’s restrictive abortion ban which presents a serious threat to reproductive justice. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) warns this advances the Trump Administration’s dangerous plans for medical care in the United States. The DOJ had originally filed suit against the state in 2022, seeking to reaffirm the standing of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in Idaho, after the Supreme Courts’ Dobbs decision permitted a highly restrictive abortion ban to go into effect in the state. PHR’s director of research, legal and advocacy, Payal Shah, commented, “The Trump administration’s decision … places pregnant patients seeking emergency medical care in the state at risk of grave harms, including deaths… clinicians and health systems will be further undermined and attacked, made to choose between evidence-based, ethical care and obedience to unjust, harmful laws.”
See also:
An Explicit Right to Abortion is Needed in International Human Rights Law, Audrey Chapman, June 2023
US Clinicians Face a Dual Loyalty Crisis over Reproductive Health Care, Ranit Mishori, Payal K. Shah, Karen Naimer, and Michele Heisler, Vol 26/1, 2024
Returning to a Pre-Roe World Threatens More than Abortion Rights, Sarthak Gupta and Pruthvirajsinh Zala, June 2022
Trump’s foreign aid cuts continue to cause turmoil globally
- WHO warns of fallout from US withdrawal
The World Health Organization has issued another warning on the consequences of the abrupt cessation of US global health funding, saying it is threatening to reverse years of progress in the fight against diseases like HIV, tuberculosis, and measles. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the Trump administration to reconsider its withdrawal of funding for international aid programs. If it refuses to do so, Tedros said the United States has a responsibility to manage the pullback in ways that do not endanger the lives of people who rely on the programs it funds.
- Hampering World Food Programme efforts in refugee camps
Following the severe cuts in US foreign aid, the World Food Programme is appealing for urgent funding needed to continue support to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Amnesty International points to the recent USAID freeze as the reason multiple hospitals have suspended services to Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, and highlights the threats to health posed by halving rations to a community facing a protracted crisis.
- Disrupting HIV programmes
UNAIDS reports that multiple countries have experienced significant cuts to health workers supported in part or in full by US funding. This includes 1,952 doctors, 1,234 nurses, and 918 technical and management staff in Kenya; 8,600 healthcare providers and community workers in Côte d’Ivoire; 423 medical and technical staff in Namibia; and about 250 health professionals that provided technical assistance to the HIV program in Angola. By early March South Africa had reported that more than 15,374 HIV response staff at national level and across 27 priority districts were impacted by US funding cuts.
- Destroying evidence in classified documents
Remaining staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) headquarters in Washington DC were instructed via an email from acting USAid secretary, Erica Y Carr, to begin a large-scale destruction of classified documents. When federal agencies are dissolved or restructured, their records are typically transferred to successor agencies or the National Archives and Records Administration. There’s concern that evidence needed for ongoing Freedom of Information Act requests and future oversight investigations is being permanently deleted.
- Slashing university grants and aid contracts
Johns Hopkins University is planning to cut more than 2,000 jobs following the slashing of $800m in USAid grants to the renowned academic institution. A total of 247 domestic US workers and another 1,975 positions abroad in 44 countries will be affected by what amounts to the largest layoff in the history of the university, especially affecting the Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school, and its affiliated non-profit for international health, Jhpiego. New York’s Columbia University has also had $400m in grants and contracts cancelled.
See also:
Fight for Rights Viewpoint: Enforceable Commitments to Global Health Needed to Fulfill Rights, Moses Mulumba, Jessica Oga, Juliana Nantabe, and Ana Lorena Ruano, 5 March 2025
Providing rights-based care for all immigrants
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) have published a guide for US health workers, to help them provide quality care to all patients, regardless of immigration status. Recommendations include methodologies for building trust, ethics when asking about immigration status, rights of practitioners, and hospital protocols for responding to immigration enforcement. PHR stated, “Health care professionals must be ready to protect health care access and defend the rights of patients, colleagues, and themselves. Our new guide will help equip health workers with knowledge and resources as they work to uphold their patients’ health and rights”.
See also:
Asylum Medicine: Standard and Best Practices, Hope Ferdowsian, Katherine Menzies, and Amy Zeidan, Vol 21/1, 2019
Characteristics and Guardianship Status of Children Undergoing Forensic Medical and Psychological Evaluation for Asylum in Miami, Marina Plesons, Haley Hullfish, Priyashma Joshi, Stephen Symes, and Anjali Saxena, Vol 26/2, December 2024
Haemorrhage remains leading cause of maternal death
A study published by the World Health Organization identifies the leading causes of maternal death, finding haemorrhages, indirect obstetric deaths, and hypertensive disorders to make up over half of all maternal deaths worldwide. WHO highlights the significance of its conclusions, explaining that ‘Most maternal deaths occur during or shortly after childbirth, making this a critical window to save lives.’ However, as Alicia Ely Yamin has stated, “What should enrage us all is that we have known the key public health interventions necessary for preventing maternal mortality for over three-quarters of a century. With advances in medical science and technology, as many as 98% of the maternal deaths that occur today are entirely preventable.”
See also:
Using Technology to Claim Rights to Free Maternal Health Care: Lessons about Impact from the My Health, My Voice Pilot Project in India Jashodhara Dasgupta, Y. K. Sandhya, Samantha Lobis, Pravesh Verma, and Marta Schaaf, Vol 17/2, 2015
Türk speaks: Accountability remedies the past, protects the future…
Speaking at the 58th session of the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, said he was there to sound the alarm: there are 120 conflicts raging, and ‘war is the ultimate violation of human rights’. He expressed outrage at the blatant dismissal of rights, of denial of humanitarian access, and the flow of weapons across borders. “In 2024, a record 356 humanitarian workers were killed”. He described accountability as key: making sure perpetrators of abuses and violations are held to account for their crimes. “Around the world, civil society, lawyers and victims are calling on warring parties to respect international law and pursue avenues of accountability. States need to be put on notice that the world is watching. Beyond States, corporations must also be held to account, including for damage to our climate and our environment.”
…has concerns about rights being rolled back in the US
Türk also raised human rights concerns in the United States: “I am now deeply worried by the fundamental shift in direction that is taking place domestically and internationally. In a paradoxical mirror image, policies intended to protect people from discrimination are now labelled as discriminatory. Progress is being rolled back on gender equality. Disinformation, intimidation and threats, notably against journalists and public officials, risk undermining the work of independent media and the functioning of institutions. Divisive rhetoric is being used to distort, deceive and polarize.”
… and beware the tech oligarchs
He added that individuals and corporations have never had so much control and influence over our lives. “A handful of unelected tech oligarchs have our data: they know where we live, what we do, our genes and our health conditions, our thoughts, our habits, our desires and our fears. They know us better than we know ourselves. And they know how to manipulate us. Any form of unregulated power can lead to oppression, subjugation, and even tyranny – the playbook of the autocrat.” He stressed the need for a fast adaptation to this, and called on states to fulfil their duty to protect people from unchecked power.
See also:
HHR is calling for papers for our Special Section in December 2025 called, “Exploring Innovative and Effective Accountability Arrangements and the Right to Health”, with Guest Editors Paul Hunt and Anuj Kapilashrami.
Five years since COVID
March 11 marked the fifth anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic – one which has to date claimed over 7 million lives globally. Mary T. Bassett, Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, looks back at the last 5 years and writes that by the time the pandemic was declared over, over one million lives were lost in the United States, with excess mortality highest among Blacks, Latinos and the indigenous. COVID-19 uncovered catastrophic weaknesses in the international community’s ability to respond to a pandemic, from inequities in vaccine and test distribution to insufficient international communication. WHO member countries failed to reach a consensus ahead of a deadline in 2024 to pass a pandemic treaty that would address those weaknesses. Negotiations are now underway to put guidelines in place before the next World Health Assembly in May 2025.
See also: Tipping Point: What Future for the Right to Health? Ted Schrecker, Vol 25/2, 2023
Previous news bulletins