Alicia Ely Yamin
Biographic Data
| ID | 89876 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alicia Ely Yamin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alicia Ely |
| FAMILY NAME | Yamin |
| SIGNATURE | YAMIN A E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5801-8946 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Paradox of Global Health Law
There is a paradox at the heart of the emerging field of Global Health Law (GHL), which lies in the relationship between GHL and governance for global health (GHG). The field of GHL has garnered increasing interest since the COVID-19 pandemic, the revisions of the International Health Regulations of 2005 in 2024 (IHR), 1 and the adoption of a Pandemic Agreement by the World Health Assembly in 2025. 2 The editors of the recently launched Journal o…
Usando direitos para aprofundar a democracia
In this text we will describe the historical path of use, in Brazil, of mallow (Urena lobata L.), a plant found in the national flora that is the perfect counterpart to jute (Corchorus olitorius L. and Corchorus capsularis L.), an exotic plant. The objective of this article is to produce knowledge about the process of using mallow to produce fibers intended for making bags for packaging agricultural products, as well as for other uses in weaving.…
Using human rights to advance global health justice in an age of inequality
Pandemic treaty needs to start with rethinking the paradigm of global health security
The Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness1 released on 11 May adds to the mounting calls for a new Pandemic Treaty that would address gaps in the global governance of threats to global health security. The emerging debate has quickly turned to focus on questions of structure and forms—a United Nations treaty or a framework convention under the auspices of the WHO, and verification and enforcement mechanisms—as well as on issues of process re…
The legal determinants of health
Unique challenges for health equity in Latin America
Overcoming continuing polarization regarding judicial enforcement of health rights in Latin America requires clarifying divergent normative and political premises, addressing the lack of reliable empirical data, and establishing the conditions for fruitful inter-sectoral, inter-disciplinary dialogue
The Evolution of Applying Human Rights Frameworks to Health
This chapter explores the evolution and struggles of the “health and human rights movement,” focusing particularly on relevant developments in health and international law that enabled greater attention to the right to health. It discusses the evolution of human rights-based approaches (HRBAs) to health, which extended these legal concepts into the domains of development and social policy. Over twenty years after it began to take shape, the “heal…
Realizing Universal Health Coverage in East Africa
Applying a robust human rights framework would change thinking and decision-making in efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and advance efforts to promote women's, children's, and adolescents' health in East Africa, which is a priority under the Sustainable Development Agenda. Nevertheless, there is a gap between global rhetoric of human rights and ongoing health reform efforts. This debate article seeks to fill part of that gap by …
The Effects of Maternal Mortality on Infant and Child Survival in Rural Tanzania
Implementing a Circle of Accountability
As more states incorporate health-related rights into their national constitutions, judges are increasingly being asked to enforce access to entitlements as well as to regulate the conduct of executive branches in relation to health. Decisions made by judicial bodies in the context of health rights litigation have far-reaching consequences, not only directly on litigants but also often indirectly on the broader population. This article argues tha…
Tracing shadows
Driven by the need to better understand the full and intergenerational toll of maternal mortality (MM), a mixed-methods study was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the impacts of maternal death on families and children. The present analysis identifies gender as a fundamental driver not only of maternal, but also child health, through manifestations of gender inequity in household decision making, labor and caregivin…
The Power of Numbers
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were heralded as opening a new chapter in international development, and have led to the use of global goals and target-setting as a central instrument defining the international development agenda. Despite this increased importance, little is understood about how they influence policy priorities of key stakeholders, and their broader consequences. While quantification is the key strength of global goals, i…
Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance
Journal Article Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance: Challenges and Dilemmas in Implementing Human Rights-Based Approaches to Health Get access Alicia Ely Yamin, Alicia Ely Yamin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Rebecca Cantor Rebecca Cantor * *Alicia Ely Yamin ([email protected]) is a Lecturer on Global Health and Policy Director, and Rebecca Cantor ([email protected]) is…
Why Global Goals and Indicators Matter
This article begins by providing some context for the selection of targets and indicators chosen to measure Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, "improvement in maternal health, " considering why the broad vision of sexual and reproductive health and (reproductive) rights set out at international conferences in the 1990s was reduced to maternal health in the MDGs in 2001. We consider the intended and unintended consequences to the sexual and repr…
The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have generated tremendous discussion in global policy and academic circles. On the one hand, they have been hailed as the most important initiative ever in international development. On the other hand, they have been described as a great betrayal of human rights and universal values that has contributed to a depoliticization of development. With contributions from scholars from the fields of economics, law,…
Embedding sexual and reproductive health and rights in a transformational development framework
This paper explores the intended and unintended consequences of the selection of MDG 5 as a global goal, together with its respective targets and indicators, and places what happened to MDG 5, and sexual and reproductive health and rights more broadly, into the context of the development model that was encoded in the MDGs. Over the last decade, as the MDGs increasingly took centre stage in development and their use evolved, they were inappropriat…
Counting What We Know; Knowing What to Count – Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Maternal Health, and the Millennium Development Goals
The sole reference to sexual and reproductive health in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is in MDG 5, which relates to improvement in maternal health. A great deal of attention has been focused upon measuring achievement of this goal, which called for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality ratios from 1990 by the year 2015. Although no scenario suggests that MDG 5 will have been reached by 2015, a number of new comprehensive estimation exer…
Litigating Health Rights
Power, Suffering, and Courts
The Local Relevance of Human Rights
Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Right…
Suffering and Powerlessness
In a rights framework, participation is inextricably related to power. Through effective participation, we can challenge political and other forms of exclusion that prevent people from having power over the decisions and processes that affect their lives and health. Yet concepts of power are as contested as notions of participation. Thus, I argue here that, far from there being a formula for what participation means in a rights-based approach to …
Will We Take Suffering Seriously? Reflections on What Applying a Human Rights Framework to Health Means and Why We Should Care
Since this journal was first published, rights-based approaches to health have prolferated in the health and development communities. At the same time, human rights advocacy organizations, courts, and UN actors have increasingly been engaged in applying rights norms in health contexts. Together with others in this issue, this article is a call not to lose sight of the radical potential of using a human rightsparadigm to promote health--even as we…
Políticas de salud y salud politizada? Un análisis de las políticas de salud sexual y reproductiva en Perú desde la perspectiva de la ética médica, calidad de atención y derechos humanos
La ética médica es considerada entre los profesionales de salud como la disciplina que proporciona las bases para brindar una atención adecuada a los pacientes. En los últimos años, los conceptos de calidad de atención y derechos humanos - así como sus diversos discursos acompañantes - se han sumado al concepto de ética médica entre los paradigmas a tener en cuenta en la atención de las personas, tanto a nivel individual, así como a nivel de polí…
Los derechos economicos, sociales y culturales en America Latina/ The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Latin America
Frameworks for Understanding Dilemmas of Health Care in a Globalized World
The way health is conceptualized determines the actions taken to protect and promote it and, in turn, the actors responsible for such actions in an increasingly inter-dependent world. This essay presents a brief description of health policies in Peru during the last ten years in order to analyze the implications of paradigms of medical ethics, human rights and quality of care. These paradigms offer distinct ways of formulating, applying and evalu…
Will We Take Suffering Seriously? Reflections on What Applying a Human Rights Framework to Health Means and Why We Should Care
Since this journal was first published, rights-based approaches to health have prolferated in the health and development communities. At the same time, human rights advocacy organizations, courts, and UN actors have increasingly been engaged in applying rights norms in health contexts. Together with others in this issue, this article is a call not to lose sight of the radical potential of using a human rightsparadigm to promote health--even as we…
Why Global Goals and Indicators Matter
This article begins by providing some context for the selection of targets and indicators chosen to measure Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, "improvement in maternal health, " considering why the broad vision of sexual and reproductive health and (reproductive) rights set out at international conferences in the 1990s was reduced to maternal health in the MDGs in 2001. We consider the intended and unintended consequences to the sexual and repr…
Embedding sexual and reproductive health and rights in a transformational development framework
This paper explores the intended and unintended consequences of the selection of MDG 5 as a global goal, together with its respective targets and indicators, and places what happened to MDG 5, and sexual and reproductive health and rights more broadly, into the context of the development model that was encoded in the MDGs. Over the last decade, as the MDGs increasingly took centre stage in development and their use evolved, they were inappropriat…
Suffering and Powerlessness
In a rights framework, participation is inextricably related to power. Through effective participation, we can challenge political and other forms of exclusion that prevent people from having power over the decisions and processes that affect their lives and health. Yet concepts of power are as contested as notions of participation. Thus, I argue here that, far from there being a formula for what participation means in a rights-based approach to …
Counting What We Know; Knowing What to Count – Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Maternal Health, and the Millennium Development Goals
The sole reference to sexual and reproductive health in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is in MDG 5, which relates to improvement in maternal health. A great deal of attention has been focused upon measuring achievement of this goal, which called for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality ratios from 1990 by the year 2015. Although no scenario suggests that MDG 5 will have been reached by 2015, a number of new comprehensive estimation exer…
Protecting and Promoting the Right to Health in Latin America
Through a description of the four major challenges faced by Latin American human rights groups and the strategies that they have adopted to overcome these challenges, this article seeks to incorporate the perspective of human rights activists into the discussion of how to make health a universally recognized human right. The ill-defined normative content of the right to health, the lack of precedents and procedures for enforceability, and the lac…
Tracing shadows
Driven by the need to better understand the full and intergenerational toll of maternal mortality (MM), a mixed-methods study was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the impacts of maternal death on families and children. The present analysis identifies gender as a fundamental driver not only of maternal, but also child health, through manifestations of gender inequity in household decision making, labor and caregivin…
The Right to Health Under International Law and Its Relevance to the United States
In recent years, there have been considerable developments in international law with respect to the normative definition of the right to health, which includes both health care and healthy conditions. These norms offer a framework that shifts the analysis of issues such as disparities in treatment from questions of quality of care to matters of social justice. Building on work in social epidemiology, a rights paradigm explicitly links health with…
Challenges and Possibilities for Innovative Praxis in Health and Human Rights
In the theoretical literature, and human has come to mean much more than either addressing the health effects of torture and other abuses or, alternatively, looking into the restrictions on civil liberties imposed by certain health policies.' Yet the continuously mounting data on the social and economic determinants of health and the impact inequality has on health point to the urgent need to find ways to translate this research into practical ad…
Promising but Elusive Engagements
A decade after Cairo there remains a serious gap between the fields of reproductive health and reproductive rights. This article draws on findings of a multi-year project that brought together experts from around the world from both fields to analyze case studies in the areas of maternal mortality, access to care, trafficking, gender-based violence, internally displaced persons, and sexual orientation. Based on these analyses as well as outside s…
Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance
Journal Article Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance: Challenges and Dilemmas in Implementing Human Rights-Based Approaches to Health Get access Alicia Ely Yamin, Alicia Ely Yamin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Rebecca Cantor Rebecca Cantor * *Alicia Ely Yamin ([email protected]) is a Lecturer on Global Health and Policy Director, and Rebecca Cantor ([email protected]) is…
Políticas de salud y salud politizada? Un análisis de las políticas de salud sexual y reproductiva en Perú desde la perspectiva de la ética médica, calidad de atención y derechos humanos
La ética médica es considerada entre los profesionales de salud como la disciplina que proporciona las bases para brindar una atención adecuada a los pacientes. En los últimos años, los conceptos de calidad de atención y derechos humanos - así como sus diversos discursos acompañantes - se han sumado al concepto de ética médica entre los paradigmas a tener en cuenta en la atención de las personas, tanto a nivel individual, así como a nivel de polí…
Ethnic Cleansing and Other Lies
The establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reflects the human rights idea that there can be no justice without truth and that notions of justice must inform the process of extracting some truth from the many stories, myths and lies that have been told about "ethnic cleansing." This article uses a three-pronged approach to combine the normative framework of human rights with the practical, quantitative metho…
Ethnic Cleansing and Other Lies
The establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reflects the human rights idea that there can be no justice without truth and that notions of justice must inform the process of extracting some truth from the many stories, myths and lies that have been told about "ethnic cleansing." This article uses a three-pronged approach to combine the normative framework of human rights with the practical, quantitative metho…
Protecting and Promoting the Right to Health in Latin America
Through a description of the four major challenges faced by Latin American human rights groups and the strategies that they have adopted to overcome these challenges, this article seeks to incorporate the perspective of human rights activists into the discussion of how to make health a universally recognized human right. The ill-defined normative content of the right to health, the lack of precedents and procedures for enforceability, and the lac…
Challenges and Possibilities for Innovative Praxis in Health and Human Rights
In the theoretical literature, and human has come to mean much more than either addressing the health effects of torture and other abuses or, alternatively, looking into the restrictions on civil liberties imposed by certain health policies.' Yet the continuously mounting data on the social and economic determinants of health and the impact inequality has on health point to the urgent need to find ways to translate this research into practical ad…
The FTAA
This article analyzes how the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would likely exacerbate critical threats to health in the Americas, from the perspectives of public health and human rights. These threats include crises in access to health care, water, and other vital human services; reemerging but preventable fatal diseases; the advance of AIDS; and biohazards. Disparities in power, wealth, health spending, and infant mortality, that undermin…
Promising but Elusive Engagements
A decade after Cairo there remains a serious gap between the fields of reproductive health and reproductive rights. This article draws on findings of a multi-year project that brought together experts from around the world from both fields to analyze case studies in the areas of maternal mortality, access to care, trafficking, gender-based violence, internally displaced persons, and sexual orientation. Based on these analyses as well as outside s…
Frameworks for Understanding Dilemmas of Health Care in a Globalized World
The way health is conceptualized determines the actions taken to protect and promote it and, in turn, the actors responsible for such actions in an increasingly inter-dependent world. This essay presents a brief description of health policies in Peru during the last ten years in order to analyze the implications of paradigms of medical ethics, human rights and quality of care. These paradigms offer distinct ways of formulating, applying and evalu…
The Right to Health Under International Law and Its Relevance to the United States
In recent years, there have been considerable developments in international law with respect to the normative definition of the right to health, which includes both health care and healthy conditions. These norms offer a framework that shifts the analysis of issues such as disparities in treatment from questions of quality of care to matters of social justice. Building on work in social epidemiology, a rights paradigm explicitly links health with…
Los derechos economicos, sociales y culturales en America Latina/ The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Latin America
Will We Take Suffering Seriously? Reflections on What Applying a Human Rights Framework to Health Means and Why We Should Care
Since this journal was first published, rights-based approaches to health have prolferated in the health and development communities. At the same time, human rights advocacy organizations, courts, and UN actors have increasingly been engaged in applying rights norms in health contexts. Together with others in this issue, this article is a call not to lose sight of the radical potential of using a human rightsparadigm to promote health--even as we…
Políticas de salud y salud politizada? Un análisis de las políticas de salud sexual y reproductiva en Perú desde la perspectiva de la ética médica, calidad de atención y derechos humanos
La ética médica es considerada entre los profesionales de salud como la disciplina que proporciona las bases para brindar una atención adecuada a los pacientes. En los últimos años, los conceptos de calidad de atención y derechos humanos - así como sus diversos discursos acompañantes - se han sumado al concepto de ética médica entre los paradigmas a tener en cuenta en la atención de las personas, tanto a nivel individual, así como a nivel de polí…
Suffering and Powerlessness
In a rights framework, participation is inextricably related to power. Through effective participation, we can challenge political and other forms of exclusion that prevent people from having power over the decisions and processes that affect their lives and health. Yet concepts of power are as contested as notions of participation. Thus, I argue here that, far from there being a formula for what participation means in a rights-based approach to …
Litigating Health Rights
Power, Suffering, and Courts
The Local Relevance of Human Rights
Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Right…
Counting What We Know; Knowing What to Count – Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Maternal Health, and the Millennium Development Goals
The sole reference to sexual and reproductive health in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is in MDG 5, which relates to improvement in maternal health. A great deal of attention has been focused upon measuring achievement of this goal, which called for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality ratios from 1990 by the year 2015. Although no scenario suggests that MDG 5 will have been reached by 2015, a number of new comprehensive estimation exer…
The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have generated tremendous discussion in global policy and academic circles. On the one hand, they have been hailed as the most important initiative ever in international development. On the other hand, they have been described as a great betrayal of human rights and universal values that has contributed to a depoliticization of development. With contributions from scholars from the fields of economics, law,…
Embedding sexual and reproductive health and rights in a transformational development framework
This paper explores the intended and unintended consequences of the selection of MDG 5 as a global goal, together with its respective targets and indicators, and places what happened to MDG 5, and sexual and reproductive health and rights more broadly, into the context of the development model that was encoded in the MDGs. Over the last decade, as the MDGs increasingly took centre stage in development and their use evolved, they were inappropriat…
The Power of Numbers
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were heralded as opening a new chapter in international development, and have led to the use of global goals and target-setting as a central instrument defining the international development agenda. Despite this increased importance, little is understood about how they influence policy priorities of key stakeholders, and their broader consequences. While quantification is the key strength of global goals, i…
Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance
Journal Article Between Insurrectional Discourse and Operational Guidance: Challenges and Dilemmas in Implementing Human Rights-Based Approaches to Health Get access Alicia Ely Yamin, Alicia Ely Yamin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Rebecca Cantor Rebecca Cantor * *Alicia Ely Yamin ([email protected]) is a Lecturer on Global Health and Policy Director, and Rebecca Cantor ([email protected]) is…
Why Global Goals and Indicators Matter
This article begins by providing some context for the selection of targets and indicators chosen to measure Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, "improvement in maternal health, " considering why the broad vision of sexual and reproductive health and (reproductive) rights set out at international conferences in the 1990s was reduced to maternal health in the MDGs in 2001. We consider the intended and unintended consequences to the sexual and repr…
The Effects of Maternal Mortality on Infant and Child Survival in Rural Tanzania
Implementing a Circle of Accountability
As more states incorporate health-related rights into their national constitutions, judges are increasingly being asked to enforce access to entitlements as well as to regulate the conduct of executive branches in relation to health. Decisions made by judicial bodies in the context of health rights litigation have far-reaching consequences, not only directly on litigants but also often indirectly on the broader population. This article argues tha…
Tracing shadows
Driven by the need to better understand the full and intergenerational toll of maternal mortality (MM), a mixed-methods study was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the impacts of maternal death on families and children. The present analysis identifies gender as a fundamental driver not only of maternal, but also child health, through manifestations of gender inequity in household decision making, labor and caregivin…
Realizing Universal Health Coverage in East Africa
Applying a robust human rights framework would change thinking and decision-making in efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and advance efforts to promote women's, children's, and adolescents' health in East Africa, which is a priority under the Sustainable Development Agenda. Nevertheless, there is a gap between global rhetoric of human rights and ongoing health reform efforts. This debate article seeks to fill part of that gap by …
The Evolution of Applying Human Rights Frameworks to Health
This chapter explores the evolution and struggles of the “health and human rights movement,” focusing particularly on relevant developments in health and international law that enabled greater attention to the right to health. It discusses the evolution of human rights-based approaches (HRBAs) to health, which extended these legal concepts into the domains of development and social policy. Over twenty years after it began to take shape, the “heal…
Political science (24 works) · Human rights (20 works) · Human Rights and Development (19 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Medicine (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (9 works) · Health care (9 works) · Law and economics (9 works)