Our Mission
The Program on Human Rights in Development (PHRD) is concerned with the realization of human rights in the context of poverty reduction and development strategies. Through teaching, research and publications, PHRD seeks to deepen understanding of the economic, legal, political, and ethical issues involved in integrating human rights into policies and programs of development.
Current research focuses on:
- The rights issues surrounding global partnerships
- The right to health in transnational comparative perspectives
- Human rights issues involved in tobacco control
- The right to development
- The right to access and benefit from technological innovation
- The implementation of economic, social, and cultural rights
- The tension between economic and human rights perspectives on goals, instruments, resources, and indicators for children’s rights and poverty reduction
Our History and projects
The Program on Human Rights in Development (PHRD) was established as part of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights in 1999. In September 2006, it moved to the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Major accomplishments include:
- Implementation of a major, Dutch-funded project on the Right to Development
- Execution of a UNICEF-funded project on economic and human rights perspectives on development
- Collaboration with the Nobel Institute on two editions of a study examining development as a human right
- Collaboration with the Harvard Kennedy School on measurement tools for the right to development
A full list of current projects is available here.
