Ethox Seminar - Why should the global and intergenerational challenges posed by infectious diseases reshape the duties to protect the human right to health?
Climate-sensitive infectious diseases, pandemics and AMR are global and intergenerational challenges. Addressing these challenges requires different frameworks, goals, values and thresholds. In this presentation, I focus on the human rights framework. I explore why these three infectious disease challenges require a review of the duties to protect the human right to health. Despite its different formulations in international and national instruments and advocacy strategies, it is argued that the human right to health justifies two types of duties: 1) duties to protect against serious threats to health, and 2) duties to guarantee the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. I explore why the transnational and intergenerational nature of these three challenges changes the scope of these two types of duties and the interpretation of the principles of progressivity and non-regression in the level of protection. In addition, I explore why moral, legal and advocacy practice needs to adapt if (intergenerational) resilience is adopted as a value for assessing the level of protection of the human right to health in these three cases.

Details & Zoom link: www.ethox.ox.ac.uk/reshape-duties-to-protect-human-right-to-health
Date: 11 February 2025, 10:30
Venue: Big Data Institute, Old Road Campus OX3 7LF
Venue Details: Lower Ground Seminar Rooms 0, Big Data Institute or on Zoom
Speaker: Dr Romina Rekers (University of Graz / FLACSO)
Organising department: Ethox Centre
Organiser: Isaac Cheng (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: isaac.cheng@ethox.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Ethox Centre Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Booking url: https://www.ethox.ox.ac.uk/reshape-duties-to-protect-human-right-to-health
Audience: Public
Editors: Aileen Mooney, Isaac Cheng