Areas of Work:  Health and Human Rights

Each of the Health and Human Rights Initiative’s research projects relies on a methodology that can be applied to a range of health topics and adapted to fit the needs of diverse local context.

How We Work

The Health and Human Rights Initiative’s research projects not only formulate innovative law and policy solutions for a given health problem in a specific context, but also evaluate their relevance to other health topics and applicability in other countries.

The Health and Human Rights Initiative carries out its work in close collaboration with local partners — including academia, government, and civil society — prioritizing engagement of new constituencies and fostering cross-country, cross-disciplinary, and cross-movement dialogues across each of its projects.

The Health and Human Rights Initiative methodology for transforming rigorous legal research and analysis into real-world law and policy solutions relies on the following core strategies: academic scholarship, capacity building, and technical assistance.

Core Strategies

Academic Scholarship: A focus on systematizing, generating, and disseminating innovative legal theories and arguments related to priority health and human rights topics in academic scholarship.

Capacity Building: A focus not only on strengthening the ability of current and future lawyers to engage in law- and policy-making on priority health and human rights topics, but also on enhancing the familiarity and expertise of other legal actors (judges, government lawyers, etc.) related to these topics.

Strategic Use of the Law: A focus on conducting or facilitating targeted interventions in law and policy reform efforts related to priority health topics (amicus briefs, expert testimony, etc.) that enhance the impact of those interventions. This work includes technical assistance, strategic litigation, and standard-setting.

Areas of Work