As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 75 this month, we must urgently reclaim the human rights narrative in global health and defend civic space, argue Rajat Khosla and Katri Bertram
> “If access to healthcare is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?” —Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and physician
For global health, 2023 has been a particularly challenging year. Armed conflicts and authoritarian nationalist leadership are on the rise, fiscal space and budgets for health are shrinking, and health related climate risks are growing.1 Political leaders’ responses to opportunities posed by three health related UN high level meetings on pandemics, universal health coverage, and tuberculosis in September, as well as ongoing negotiations on the pandemic accord, haven’t yet produced tangible action. In the worst cases they’ve reinforced nationalist rhetoric and negotiation positions, whereby self-interest and greed among countries and private stakeholders have trumped our shared humanity.
As we approach the 75th anniversary of the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights (ratified on 10 December 1948), whereby countries committed to ensuring that “all human beings are …