GSL Fellow Roojin Habibi leads in crafting ‘Principles on Human Rights & Public Health Emergencies’ with 150+ global experts, also directing a documentary on the process.

In the article, the authors make the case for a consensus-based restatement of principles, drawn from international legal standards, that will harmonize public health and human rights imperatives as the world braces for inevitable, looming global health emergencies of the future.

GSL Research Fellow Roojin Habibi together with a number of colleagues from the Global Health Law Consortium co-authored a column in the Journal of Law Medicine, and Ethics discussing the World Health Organization’s role in developing and implementing global health law.

Both articles were outputs from a workshop GSL organized in South Africa in the Spring of 2019. Out of the workshop grew a new research community titled the Global Health Law Consortium (GHLC) which is administratively hosted at GSL (York University).

In the article, the authors allege that while governments have implemented harsh regulatory measures to try to curb the spread of COVID-19, they haven’t really addressed the human rights violations that these measures create.

In the piece, Habibi, Mason Meier, and Huffstetler allege that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed continuing weaknesses in the IHR, contributing to widespread rights violations and igniting calls for further reforms.

Fifteen global health law experts from around the world published a commentary in the Lancet arguing for a reimagining of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in the wake of COVID-19. The authors focused on three areas that need particular attention.