Research Handbook on Human Rights Law and Health
Published on 26. September 2025
Book
Hardback
404 pages
978-1-80392-802-9 (ISBN)
Description
This Research Handbook examines the many ways in which health engages human rights law. It also explores current debates which challenge traditional perspectives of rights and identifies potential new directions in which human rights law might venture, including the legal status of medical devices, a human right to medicines and conscientious objections to assisted dying.
Elizabeth Wicks and Nataly Papadopoulou bring together renowned experts who pose important questions about the limits of human rights, and the law more broadly, as new threats and opportunities related to health emerge. The Research Handbook adopts a forward-looking perspective in which contributing authors challenge the status quo and seek to identify key future challenges for which new directions of human rights law can play a crucial, positive role in the betterment of health and health care provision. Chapters examine contemporary issues of concern such as health rights for migrants, assisted dying, surrogacy and abortion, access to health care for older persons and the need to protect landscapes for health.
This Research Handbook is a vital tool for students and scholars of human rights law and health law. Its forward-thinking approach to both the role of human rights and the conceptualisation of health will also greatly benefit practising lawyers and legal policymakers seeking to reform the field.
Elizabeth Wicks and Nataly Papadopoulou bring together renowned experts who pose important questions about the limits of human rights, and the law more broadly, as new threats and opportunities related to health emerge. The Research Handbook adopts a forward-looking perspective in which contributing authors challenge the status quo and seek to identify key future challenges for which new directions of human rights law can play a crucial, positive role in the betterment of health and health care provision. Chapters examine contemporary issues of concern such as health rights for migrants, assisted dying, surrogacy and abortion, access to health care for older persons and the need to protect landscapes for health.
This Research Handbook is a vital tool for students and scholars of human rights law and health law. Its forward-thinking approach to both the role of human rights and the conceptualisation of health will also greatly benefit practising lawyers and legal policymakers seeking to reform the field.
Reviews / Votes
'Human rights law is both legal and ethical. This distinctive dual character is a deep challenge and a great strength. The editors of the Research Handbook describe it with a wonderful trio of adjectives: complex, emotive and vital. They are right, and the chapters they have put together help us to understand why.' -- Therese Murphy, Queen's University Belfast, UKMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cheltenham
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 169 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80392-802-9 (9781803928029)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Edited by Elizabeth Wicks, Professor of Human Rights Law and Co-director, Centre for Rights and Equality in Health Law (CREHL) and Nataly Papadopoulou, Lecturer, Leicester Law School, University of Leicester, UK
Content
Contents
Introduction: human rights law and health - new challenges; new perspectives 1
Nataly Papadopoulou and Elizabeth Wicks
PART I HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES IN HEALTH
1 The right to health 12
Stephen P. Marks
2 The right to health: shifting priorities from healthcare to prevention 41
Brigit Toebes and Aart Hendriks
3 Pursuing health rights for distress migrants: harnessing interdisciplinary
inputs and legal literacy 56
Stefano Angeleri
4 The doctrine of informed consent, patients' religious beliefs and relational
theory of autonomy 80
Nili Karako-Eyal
5 A right to refuse to kill? Human rights and conscientious objection to
'assisted dying' in the UK 105
Mary Neal
PART II HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH THROUGHOUT THE LIFE CYCLE
6 Surrogacy: reproductive rights enabling 'biological colonialism'? 135
Marianna Iliadou
7 'Abortion is healthcare': the promise and pitfalls of framing abortion under
the right to health 157
Zoe L. Tongue
8 Building on areas of agreement in the United Nations' Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: the right to 'habilitation and
rehabilitation' for mental illness 179
Brendan D. Kelly
9 Older persons and fundamental human rights to access healthcare in
England: new models, new protections? 194
Jean McHale
10 Living through dying: the case for the legalisation of assisted dying based
on the rights to life and freedom from ill-treatment in the European
Convention on Human Rights 219
Stevie Martin
11 Political environments of assisted dying: affirming the legitimacy of
assisted dying legislation 247
Cedric Charles Gilson and Nataly Papadopoulou
PART III CHALLENGING HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH: NEW
PERSPECTIVES AND EMERGING CHALLENGES
12 Hybrid human rights? Persons, property rights, and medical devices 277
Muireann Quigley and Joseph Roberts
13 The evolution of the human right to medicines from HIV/AIDS to COVID-
19 310
Lisa Forman
14 A necessary conversation: understanding rehabilitation within a holistic
right to health for persons with disabilities 330
Danielle Watson
15 Landscapes for health 353
Elizabeth Wicks
Introduction: human rights law and health - new challenges; new perspectives 1
Nataly Papadopoulou and Elizabeth Wicks
PART I HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES IN HEALTH
1 The right to health 12
Stephen P. Marks
2 The right to health: shifting priorities from healthcare to prevention 41
Brigit Toebes and Aart Hendriks
3 Pursuing health rights for distress migrants: harnessing interdisciplinary
inputs and legal literacy 56
Stefano Angeleri
4 The doctrine of informed consent, patients' religious beliefs and relational
theory of autonomy 80
Nili Karako-Eyal
5 A right to refuse to kill? Human rights and conscientious objection to
'assisted dying' in the UK 105
Mary Neal
PART II HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH THROUGHOUT THE LIFE CYCLE
6 Surrogacy: reproductive rights enabling 'biological colonialism'? 135
Marianna Iliadou
7 'Abortion is healthcare': the promise and pitfalls of framing abortion under
the right to health 157
Zoe L. Tongue
8 Building on areas of agreement in the United Nations' Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: the right to 'habilitation and
rehabilitation' for mental illness 179
Brendan D. Kelly
9 Older persons and fundamental human rights to access healthcare in
England: new models, new protections? 194
Jean McHale
10 Living through dying: the case for the legalisation of assisted dying based
on the rights to life and freedom from ill-treatment in the European
Convention on Human Rights 219
Stevie Martin
11 Political environments of assisted dying: affirming the legitimacy of
assisted dying legislation 247
Cedric Charles Gilson and Nataly Papadopoulou
PART III CHALLENGING HUMAN RIGHTS AND HEALTH: NEW
PERSPECTIVES AND EMERGING CHALLENGES
12 Hybrid human rights? Persons, property rights, and medical devices 277
Muireann Quigley and Joseph Roberts
13 The evolution of the human right to medicines from HIV/AIDS to COVID-
19 310
Lisa Forman
14 A necessary conversation: understanding rehabilitation within a holistic
right to health for persons with disabilities 330
Danielle Watson
15 Landscapes for health 353
Elizabeth Wicks