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From the Dean: Health and Human Rights
I write to invite all members of our school community to attend
the capstone event of the fall, our fiftieth anniversary celebration of
the Universal Declaration of Health and Human Rights on December 14.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented by Eleanor Roosevelt to the United Nations General Assembly in September 1948 and was accepted by that body on December 10 of the same year. This document was a revolutionary attempt to prevent future human catastrophes on the horrific scale of World War II, in which approximately sixty million people, most of them civilians, were killed.
Especially meaningful to those of us in the public health endeavor, the declaration contains an article specifying a universal right to health: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security."
Justice Michael Kirby of
Australia will give a presentation titled
"The Right to Health Fifty Years On--Still
Skeptical?" at 4:00 p.m. on December 14 as part of
the school's celebration of the 50th anniversary of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The celebration concludes with a reception
and holiday party following the keynote speech.
All events are held in the Kresge cafeteria.
This and other parts of the declaration inform and inspire
the work of our François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and
Human Rights. Yet the importance of human rights cuts across all of
the departments and research centers of the school. Many of our
public health efforts are rendered futile when fundamental human rights
are violatedwhen civil wars create widespread starvation and
epidemics of infectious disease, when women are deprived of
the education and legal rights they need to make sound
reproductive choices, when small children are forced
to labor long hours in factories and fields.
Thus, our program on December 14, hosted by the FXB Center, should have great resonance for all of us at the school. The program will begin at 2:00 p.m. with a panel presentation describing the very different US and Swiss policy responses to HIV/AIDS and placing these within a human rights framework. Then, shortly after 4:00 p.m., we will hear a keynote address from Justice Michael Kirby of Australia, a brilliant speaker and career-long advocate of human rights around the world.
Following Justice Kirby's remarks, we will hold our annual
holiday reception, complete with delicious food and drink, in the
Kresge cafeteria. Please come, listen, and enjoy yourselves.
