This essay seeks to explore some theoretical and practical obstacles to developing a coherent and comprehensive theory for the interpretation of health legislation. One obstacle considered involves the academic and professional reluctance to direct critical attention to interpretive actions...

Widows - both child and adult in Tanzania, as in many other parts of the world, face discrimination on a regular basis. Such discrimination commonly destroys a woman's ability to live a life outside of poverty. In the face of the suffering and injustice widows endure throughout Africa, and...

This paper explores methods of achieving linkage in international law between the human right to health and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) ). It explores the relevance to this question of international law’s...

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recently adopted General Comment No. 2 to interpret provisions of Article 14 of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women. The provisions relate to women’s rights to fertility control, contraception, family planning,...

Physicians both collectively and individually need not be passive in the face of demonstrable evidence of social injustices that cost women their lives, in high proportions and for causes that could be cost-effectively prevented or remedied. Ethical arguments and legal means can be mobilized to...

Justice is so central to the mission of public health that it has been described as the field's core value. Our account of justice stresses the fair disbursement of common advantages and sharing of common burdens. It captures the twin moral impulses that animate public health: to advance human...

Millions of people in the developing world lack access to curative drugs. Thomas Pogge identifies the cause for this problem in a lack of redistribution across borders. By contrast, this article shows that institutional shortcomings within developing countries are the main issue. The different...

I trace the evolution of ethical approaches to health policy in the United States and examine a number of critical unresolved issues pertaining to the current set of frameworks. Several themes emerge. First, fair procedures claim more attention than substantive and procedural principles. Second,...

Individuals' reproductive choices are private matters, but sexual conduct and pregnancy impose significant public health burdens. Ethical principles of public health are distinguishable from principles applied in modern bioethics. Bioethical principles have been developed at the clinical or...