Law and Health Initiative Digest

The Law and Health Initiative Digest is a monthly round-up of advocacy and grant-making activities supported by the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) of the Open Society Institute and Soros foundations.  Each issue contains brief highlights of LAHI activities under each of our five priority areas.

 In This Issue

• Health and Legal Services
• Human Rights in Patient Care
• HIV/AIDS and Human Rights
• Capacity Development
• Legal Strategies in Health Monitoring

Health and Legal Services

Introducing www.hand-help.ru
With the support of LAHI and the International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD), the Moscow-based Institute of Human Rights has launched an Internet-based legal aid service for drug users in Russia.  The Russian-language website, www.hand-help.ru, provides a simple web-based format through which clients can send legal questions related to drug use to project lawyers.  The questions and answers are posted anonymously on the website as a resource for other users.  A moderated discussion forum is also available for clients of the site to communicate with each other.  In only a year, the website has grown in popularity among people using drugs in Russia, including those in prison with access to the Internet.  The website is one of five legal aid projects LAHI and IHRD have been jointly supporting in Russia since 2007.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org or Janna Ataiants at jataiants@sorosny.org.

Human Rights in Patient Care

Salzburg Seminar on Law and Health
On February 10-15, LAHI organized the second annual Salzburg Law and Health Seminar.  The Seminar centered around the development of Practitioner Guides in Law and Health and a companion website for lawyers interested in taking patient rights cases.  These will be practical, how-to guides covering both litigation and alternative mechanisms, such as ombudspersons, with chapters on patient and provider rights and responsibilities and procedural mechanisms at national, regional, and international levels.  LAHI, public health, and rule of law coordinators from Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, and Ukraine attended the Seminar, along with representatives from an interdisciplinary team of experts working on the guides in each of these countries.  For more information, please contact Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org.

HIV/AIDS and Human Rights

LAHI Featured in Special Issue of HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review
The flagship publication of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review, features a Special Section on LAHI in its December 2007 issue.  The Section includes articles from six countries on issues such as the constitutional rights of HIV-positive women in Swaziland, the global debate on "opt-out" HIV testing, and the first landmark case on HIV-related privacy in Kyrgyzstan.  Authors represent a range of LAHI grantees, including the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of South Africa, FIDA-Kenya, and Union Alternative Georgia.  The Special Issue marks the first time the Review was published in three languages: English, French, and Russian.  LAHI co-sponsored this issue of the Review along with the OSI Public Health Program's Health Media Project.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org.

Model Laws to Empower Women in sub-Saharan Africa
On January 16-18,  LAHI Program Officer, Tamar Ezer, and Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA)-LAHI Coordinator, Anne Gathumbi, attended a consultation on legislation for women's rights in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  Convened by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the meeting sought comments and recommendations for model legislation seeking to empower women and address human rights abuses perpetuating the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  Model laws discussed at the meeting focused on property law and inheritance rights and on family law governing marriage and divorce.   For more information, please contact Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org or Anne Gathumbi at agathumbi@osiea.org.

International AIDS Conference, Mexico City, August 3-8
The 2008 International AIDS Conference ("AIDS2008"), convening in Mexico City from August 3-8, presents an opportunity to highlight legal and human rights responses to the global HIV epidemic before a diverse and influential audience.  In collaboration with other PHP initiatives, LAHI will use the occasion of AIDS2008 to bring together human rights organizations around the theme, "Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever," embodied in a Declaration launched on World AIDS Day 2007 (visit www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/law/articles_publications/publications/human_20071017 to view the Declaration in and eight languages and endorse it).  With LAHI's support, a coalition of groups has submitted a proposal to create a Human Rights Networking Zone in the conference's Global Village, which will serve as hub for human rights-related information and advocacy.  LAHI and its grantees also submitted session proposals on issues such as integrating legal services into HIV programs, using the Now More Than Ever declaration in local advocacy, providing core funding to HIV and human rights organizations, and emerging issues such as "opt-out" HIV testing and criminalization of HIV transmission.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org or Ralf Jürgens at rjurgens@sympatico.ca.

Capacity Development

Health and Human Rights Resource Guide available in HTML
LAHI, in collaboration with the OSI's Public Health Program and the Human Rights and Governance Grants Program, developed an HTML version of the Health and Human Rights: A Resource Guide, produced for the 2007 Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network meeting in Cape Town.  The Resource Guide in HTML can be accessed at: www.equalpartners.info.  This six chapter Resource Guide provides a practical tool for advocates working at the intersection of health and human rights with fact sheets, jurisprudence, case studies, bibliographies, and glossary definitions.  The website further contains a "contact" page enabling users to submit updates and comments, keeping the Resource Guide current and useful, and links to easily-downloadable, individualized guides based on each chapter on patient care, HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, sexual health, and the health of minority communities.  Fore more information, please contact Olga Baraulia at vbaraulia@sorosny.org.

Legal Strategies in Health Monitoring

First LAHI Team Call: the New UN Human Rights Council
On February 28, LAHI held its first Team call, which focused on the new UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Universal Periodic Review mechanism and opportunities for LAHI's engagement.  Participants on the call included LAHI Staff, Coordinators, Advisers, and Consultants.  During the call, two representatives of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Laura Dolci-Kanaan (NGO Liaison Officer) and Abigail Noko (Human Rights Officer) presented on the HRC and its potential for health and HIV advocacy.  Background information on the HRC and NGO participation is available at:  www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/ngo.htm and www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/upr/noteNGO_041007.htm.

A handbook with information on the UN's human rights work and using the UN system to address human rights violations, can be found at: www.ohchr.org/EN/PublicationsResources/Pages/Publications.aspx.

If you would like to learn more about the call or to receive regular information on HRC-related activities, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sosrny.org or Olga Baraulia at vbaraulia@sorosny.org.