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 and Patient Care
• HIV/AIDS and Human Rights
• Capacity Development
• Other Announcements
  

Health and Legal Services

Human Rights at 2009 International Harm Reduction Conference
Human Rights issues took center stage at the International Harm Reduction Association annual conference in Bangkok, Thailand, with plenaries and major sessions covering issues such as compulsory drug treatment, legal interventions, police abuse, and human rights documentation.  LAHI joined the International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD) in highlighting the brave human rights activism of our harm reduction partners in the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa.  LAHI Director Jonathan Cohen spoke in a major session on the importance of integrating legal services into harm reduction as a way of combating human rights abuses against drug users.  Following the session, a diverse group of lawyers gathered to strategize about how better to coordinate their efforts and use legal aid to develop a drug policy reform agenda.  LAHI East Africa Coordinator Anne Gathumbi delivered an address on the health and human rights of drug users on the East African coast, based on an assessment sponsored by LAHI and IHRD in 2008.  IHRD, LAHI, and the Open Society Justice Initiative convened a special meeting during the conference on public health and pre-trial detention.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org.

Workshop on Strategic Litigation in Heath Care Held in Ukraine
In March 2009, the Institute of Legal Research and Strategies and Kharkiv Human Rights Group, with support of IRF and OSI, conducted a workshop on strategic litigation in health care. More than 30 representatives from human rights NGOs and patients' and community groups from across Ukraine attended this meeting. The participants shared information about their activities, presented their experience in specific areas, and discussed practical legal problems in health care, as well as the gaps and inconsistencies in Ukrainian legislation. Experts with extensive experience with HIV-positive people and injection drug users described concrete problems of these vulnerable groups and the ways to protect their rights. Participants laid the groundwork for building a common database to document human rights violations in health care.  Such a shared collection of data could be useful for future advocacy campaigns for patients' rights. An e-group and listserve have been established to continue collaboration and foster a civil society network committed to protecting the human rights of patients in Ukraine. For more information, contact Maria Vynnytska at vynnytska@irf.kiev.ua

Expert Meeting Considers Strengthening and Expanding HIV Legal Services
The International Development Law Organization (IDLO), UNAIDS, and UNDP convened an expert meeting in Rome in May to develop a toolkit for strengthening and expanding legal services for people living with and vulnerable to HIV.  LAHI participants at the meeting included Jonathan Cohen and Gennadiy Tokarev, a criminal lawyer providing technical assistance to five projects providing legal support to drug users in Ukraine.  LAHI also sponsored the participation of Marina Chokheli, a lawyer representing prisoners and people living with HIV in Georgia.  Participants provided feedback on how to design HIV legal services, train legal professionals in HIV, and sustain services through funding and technical support.  The participants were grateful for the opportunity to discuss a critical yet highly neglected aspect of the global HIV response, and resolved to work together to increase the profile of legal services on the global AIDS agenda.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org.

Human Rights in Patient Care

Human Rights in Health Care Coalition Launched in Georgia
On February 15, 2009, with support from the Open Society Georgia Foundation and OSI's LAHI and Health Media Initiatives, the Human Rights in Health Care Coalition was launched in Georgia, uniting eight national NGOs operating in the field of human rights and health care. The goal of the coalition is to protect human rights in health care, provide objective and reliable information to the public, and enhance accountability of the government before the people. The coalition will also focus on promoting civil and social rights of marginalized groups, including people living with HIV and AIDS, people who use drugs, prisoners, terminally ill people, and people with physical and mental disabilities. The launch was attended by members of Parliament, ministry officials, independent experts, journalists, and representatives of NGOs and the donor community. To learn more about the coalition, please visit www.hrh.ge or contact Nina Kiknadze at nkiknadze@osgf.ge.

Palliative Care Providers and Human Rights Advocates Meet in Ukraine
The International Renaissance Foundation, in partnership with the Law and Health Initiative and the International Palliative Care Initiative, convened palliative care providers and human rights advocates for a two-day meeting in Kharkiv, Ukraine in February.  Leading experts discussed how palliative care can be advanced by utilizing a legal and human rights framework.  The agenda included presentations on legal issues identified in accessing opioid medicines for pain relief and case studies from successful efforts in countries such as Hungary and Georgia. The advocates and providers will continue to work together and formalize areas of collaboration based on the issues identified at the meeting.  For more information, please contact Maria Vynnytska at vynnytska@irf.kiev.ua or Kiera Hepford at khepford@sorosny.org.    

Human Rights in Patient Care Web Site Coordinators Convene in Armenia
In early April, web site coordinators from Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia, and Ukraine, along with OSI staff and international experts, convened in Yerevan to hammer out key decisions for the Practitioner Guide web project.  The goal of the project, supported by LAHI and OSI's Health Media Initiative, is to put the "Human Rights in Patient Care"  Practitioner Guides online in order to increase access by lawyers in those countries and to facilitate updating by the guides' authors.  The sites will also serve as a resource center and discussion forum for lawyers, patients, and health providers interested in protecting human rights in the delivery of patient care.  After meeting each other for the first time and introducing their respective sites, the coordinators made several important decisions regarding the management, content, and promotion of the international site, which will serve as a portal for the country sites.  As participant Mariya Vynnytska of the International Renaissance Foundation in Kiev noted, "No one could have predicted how the PG project would turn out when we started.  It's great to see the two pieces [guide and web site] coming together."  For more information, please contact Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org or Mary Joyce at marycjoyce@gmail.com.

HIV/AIDS and Human Rights

LAHI, IHRD, and Justice Initiative Collaborate on Public Health and Pretrial Detention
The excessive use of pretrial detention-the incarceration of people who have not yet been convicted of any crime-poses a great risk to public health and human rights.  Health risks include: extreme and erratic overcrowding; substandard conditions such as denial of basic health care; rapid turnover causing detainees to be regularly exposed to communicable diseases; and interruptions in medical treatment while in detention.  Human rights abuses include: beatings; deprivation of sleep, clothing, and food; and sexual assault. LAHI, IHRD, and the Open Society Justice Initiative's Global Campaign on Pretrial Justice will conduct and galvanize research, develop publications, engage in litigation, and work with local groups to develop programs that address the intersection of pretrial justice and public health. The joint project will emphasize those who face the most extreme abuses-people living with HIV and tuberculosis, sex workers, and drug users.  This project aims to develop programs that allow pretrial release for people with specific health needs; increase collaboration between health and prison reform advocates; develop data and documentation to assist prison and health officials to resolve problems; increase the amount of funding for health and human rights interventions in the pretrial stage; and bring cases to international decision-making bodies to develop precedents on health rights in pretrial detention.  For more information, please contact Jonathan Cohen at jcohen@sorosny.org.

Advocacy to Protect Women's Property Rights and Prevent HIV
In conjunction with the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) in March, LAHI participated in two events advocating for women's property rights-highlighting the fact that women who are denied land and housing rights are more vulnerable to AIDS and less able to cope with the disease.  LAHI hosted a strategy meeting, Strengthening Work on the Intersection of Women's Land, Housing and Inheritance Rights and HIV/AIDS, to identify key ongoing interventions and opportunities for further coordination, and discuss normative and operational recommendations for CSW and beyond.  LAHI also participated in a CSW side meeting, Inheritance, Land and Housing Rights for Women:  A Mitigation Strategy for HIV/AIDS.  Panelists at the event included Anne Gathumbi, the OSIEA-LAHI coordinator, and Seodi White from Women and Law in Southern Africa-Malawi. Along with FIDA Kenya, Women and Law in Southern Africa is coordinating an inheritance legal network in East and Southern Africa with support from LAHI, OSIEA, OSISA, and OSI's Health Media Initiative.  For further information, please contact Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org or Anne Gathumbi at agathumbi@osiea.org.

Case Studies on HIV Testing of Pregnant Women in Kenya, South Africa, and Ukraine
LAHI and the Public Health Watch project of OSI's Public Health Program are supporting case studies on HIV testing of pregnant women in Kenya, South Africa, and Ukraine.  Researchers from the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and HealthRight International, Inc. will work with local partners to examine:  1) how HIV testing policy implementation is affecting testing uptake and health outcomes among pregnant women, 2) the ways in which HIV testing practice reflects national testing policy, and 3) the extent to which HIV testing practice is protective of pregnant women's rights.  The case studies build on a LAHI-commissioned paper written by the UNC team, "HIV Testing During Pregnancy:  A Literature and Policy Review", and is part of OSI's efforts to promote human rights protections in HIV testing.  Community-based organizations will also participate in the project by collecting personal narratives of women who have been tested during pregnancy.  These narratives will inform the development of tools to implement human rights protections and will be used to advocate for national testing practices that uphold women's rights.  For more information, please contact Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org.

Opposing the Criminalization of HIV/AIDS in Kenya
Three years after it was passed, Kenya implemented its HIV/AIDS law in March 2009. The Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) and LAHI supported local partners in filing a lawsuit to compel the government to enforce the law. The move comes after civil society organizations successfully advocated to remove provisions in the law that would have punished people for exposing others to HIV, which experts say would undermine HIV prevention and treatment programs. OSIEA and LAHI convened women's organizations and people living with HIV to develop arguments against these discriminatory provisions. OSI also published Ten Reasons to Oppose the Criminalization of HIV Exposure, which outlined why criminalizing HIV exposure or transmission is unjust and ineffective public policy. For more information, please contact Anne Gathumbi at: agathumbi@osiea.org.

Capacity Development

Salzburg Seminar on Conducting Health and Human Rights Trainings
The International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations (IFHHRO), in coordination with OSI, organized a five-day seminar on integration of the OSI Health and Human Rights Resource Guide into trainings.  The seminar took place at the Schloss Arenberg in Salzburg, Austria from March 22-27.  Participants represented organizations engaged in health or human rights trainings and came from the following countries:  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.  The seminar introduced participants to different interactive training methodologies and to the various topics in the resource guide: patient care, HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, palliative care, sexual health, minority health, and mental health.   Participants can now apply for follow-up support from OSI's Public Health Program and Human Rights and Governance Grants Program to integrate materials and issues from the resource guide into their trainings. IFHHRO will also provide successful applicants with technical assistance.  For more information, please contact Roos Terhorst at r.terhorst@uu.nl or Tamar Ezer at tezer@sorosny.org

Workshop on Courses in Law, Human Rights, and Patient Care Held in Armenia
From March 31 to April 3, 2009, representatives of educational institutions that provide LAHI courses on law, human rights, and patient care participated in the first LAHI workshop on "Teaching Law and Health."  The workshop was held in Yerevan, Armenia, with participants from Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine, representing law faculties, medical universities, postgraduate medical training institutes, and schools of public health.  Activities were targeted toward similarities and differences in methodology and content when teaching the courses to practicing lawyers, law students and students in legal clinics, doctors, medical students, public health professionals and students, and health managers.  The workshop culminated in lesson plans for the different target audiences being prepared and taught by workshop participants and the establishment of an online "Community of Practice" for continued collaboration among the workshop faculty and participants. For more information, please contact Judy Overall at joverall10@aol.com.

Training for SADC Parliamentarians on Access to Medicines
With the support of LAHI and the Access to Essential Medicines Initiative, the University of Pretoria will training SADC parliamentarians on practical legislative measures that can be taken to improve access to medicines in Southern Africa.  The university will offer a winter course to build the capacity of parliamentarians to play an effective role in oversight and developing legislation.  The university will provide technical assistance to SADC parliamentarians after the course to assist them in shaping policies to further access to medicines in their jurisdictions.  For more information, please contact Jane Li at jli@sorosny.org. 

University of Pretoria Winter Course on Access to Medicines
The University of Pretoria, with assistance from LAHI and AEMI, held a winter course in May for LLM students and legal practitioners from across Africa on the human rights implications of medicines law and policy.  Participants included Human Rights LLM students, NGO representatives from countries that will be filing human rights compliance reports with the African Commission and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as NGO representatives working on specific access to medicines campaigns.  NGO participants will receive follow-up support from the clinical project to assist them in filing "shadow reports" on right to health and access to medicines issues to human rights monitoring bodies.  For more information, please contact Jane Li at jli@sorosny.org.

Other Announcements

Ralf Jürgens Wins Prestigious Rolleston Award
Ralf Jürgens, a cherished consultant for LAHI and the Public Health Program, won the prestigious International Rolleston Award, which is given annually by the International Harm Reduction Association to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to reducing harms from psychoactive substances.  A leading global advocate for human rights related to all aspects of HIV and AIDS, Ralf is particularly beloved by the harm reduction community for his passionate advocacy for prison-based harm reduction services, legal and policy frameworks to support harm reduction services, and the greater, meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in decisions that affect their lives.  Ralf has been a steadfast advocate for the health and human rights of people who use drugs since founding and acting as the first Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and more recently as a consultant to numerous organizations and secretariat of the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights.  The award, which Ralf shared this year with noted researcher Sam Friedman from the National Development and Research Institutes, is named after Sir Humphrey Rolleson, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and chair of the UK Departmental Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction.