Health and Human Rights: Principles, Practice and Dilemmas

This course will examine key concepts, principles and instruments of human rights and bioethics and discuss its application to the right to health and contemporary challenges in global public health practice. These challenges will be explored through specific case studies which address wide ranging ethical questions: from system level (financing and delivery of health care), individual litigation, community level organising to addressing ethical questions in biomedical/life sciences or public health research. We will examine ethical issues in public health in a global context and examine ways in which rights based approaches to health have been used to empower communities to seek entitlements, shape and reform policy at international and national level. Human rights and Bioethics will be the foundational tools for critically evaluating global health policies and their impact. Aim: To provide students with an understanding of rights-based approaches to health and to enable them to apply these to the practice of global public health. Credit Level: 11 Year taken: Postgraduate