As discussed in Chapter 1, the primary focus of this book is on the potential of neurotechnology to support the rehabilitation of convicted persons by improving risk assessment and risk management – rather than on its potential for diagnosing and treating mental or brain disorders. Still, in some cases, neurorehabilitation might well become conducive or even crucial to the improvement of mental health in forensic populations. Brain stimulation to attenuate aggressive impulses might serve to reduce the mental distress experienced by some persons subject to these impulses. Furthermore, aggression can be a symptom of a recognised mental illness, such as a psychotic disorder, or may be a core feature of a disorder, as in intermittent explosive disorder. Diminishing aggression using neurotechnology could in such cases be relevant to the person’s mental health, which appears to be an interest protected by human rights law. For example, Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises a “right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

The relationship between One Health and human rights is both symbiotic and antagonistic. The objectives of One Health align with human rights to the extent that they advance specific rights, particularly the rights to life and health. One Health also promotes human dignity, the foundation of human rights, by improving environmental conditions and addressing threats to health that impact people’s lives. Yet the inherent anthropocentrism of human rights sits uneasily with One Health’s commitment to human, animal, and environmental health. The growing field of environmental human rights may offer some way forward for resolving this tension and advancing the legal framework for One Health, while also highlighting some of the potential pitfalls along the way. Early environmental human rights positioned the environment as a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights. More recently the right to a healthy environment has been recognised more widely, expanding the potential for human rights objectives to include protection of environmental health, and perhaps also animal health. This chapter will explore the lessons that human rights law might offer and the potential for the right to a healthy environment to temper the anthropocentrism of human rights in a way that better promotes the triple objectives of One Health.

This chapter examines economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights under international human rights law. It covers the right to property, the right to a healthy environment, the right to adequate housing, the right to health, and the right to education. The chapter discusses the legal standards and protections for these rights, the obligations of states to ensure their realization, and the role of international bodies in monitoring compliance. It also highlights the challenges in achieving these rights, particularly in the context of economic inequality, environmental degradation, and social exclusion, and the importance of adopting comprehensive and inclusive policies to address these issues.

Commons are tangible and intangible goods (e.g., knowledge, health) that should be accessible to all members of a certain community (e.g., global, supranational, national, local). Private law and the commons in scientific research have traditionally been regarded as two mutually exclusive concepts. While the idea of the commons in scientific research is based on the concepts of open access to information, knowledge, data, and materials, the traditional understanding of private law evokes the opposing notions of ownership, patents, and privatization. However, scientific practice has shown how different models based on private law rules can be used to enhance and protect the commons, while at the same time encouraging innovation. This chapter explores, from a theoretical and practical perspective, how private law (property rights, intellectual property, licenses, and other contracts) can be used to develop models to lay down the legal foundation for the construction and further protection of the commons arising from the use and exchange of health data and human biological materials in scientific research for the improvement of human health.

In particular, this chapter’s general objective is to determine how, and to what extent, the interplay between private law and the commons is instrumental in protecting and promoting individual and collective human rights, with particular emphasis on the right to health and health care and the right to enjoy the benefits of science and scientific progress.

Drawing on insights from two global symposia that together reported on governmental responses to COVID-19 in 75 countries, this chapter traces two cross-cutting themes that shed greater light on varied impacts on civil liberties and socio-economic rights. First, it considers whether a constitutional state of exception is preferable to using ordinary legislation in managing the impacts on civil liberties of a health and social crisis. The chapter suggests that whether countries are successful in limiting the potential for abuses is best understood in light of socio-historical factors, as well as informal rules that underpin normative and institutional legitimacy, as much as the formal legal vehicles used. Second, the pandemic has exposed the effects of decades of privatization, reduced social spending and rising inequality on health. The chapter suggests that the ways laws structure financing and organization of health systems (public health and care) are as critical to understanding responses as legal recognition of health-related rights. With respect to both civil liberties and health-related rights, the chapter argues that the key to understanding the varied impacts and responses to COVID-19, as well as to consolidating the democratic rule of law post-pandemic, is examining the wider contexts and contingencies that shape how formal legal rules operate.

This chapter discusses the right to health as it is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, other Council of Europe instruments, in EU law and in international instruments. Attention is paid to eg access to health care, quality of health care, positive obligations and informed consent. In the final section, a short comparison between the different instruments is made.

This chapter aims to analyze one aspect of the proportionality test in the case law of the Brazilian Supreme Court: its use as a tool for deciding cases involving socioeconomic rights. If these rights are one of the core elements of a transformative constitution, using the proportionality test to decide these cases raises the question of its transformative potential. We argue that there are several reasons for concluding that proportionality does not play a transformative role in Brazil. Some of these reasons are related to the general debate on the transformative potential of litigation; others are related to how the Brazilian Supreme Court uses the proportionality test, which could be summarized as follows: First, the Court has often used the proportionality test as a rhetorical device only; second, due to peculiarities of the decision-making process of the Court, proportionality has never been employed by the majority of its judges; third, in the realm of socioeconomic rights, the role of proportionality has been frequently undermined by other types of reasoning.

This chapter provides an overview of key judgments by international courts and tribunals dealing with environmental and human rights protection. It focuses mainly on regional human rights courts to show how environmental protection has been dealt with under these mechanisms. The objective is not to offer a comprehensive analysis of the environmental jurisprudence of these judicial mechanisms, but to signal how a specific synergistic and anthropocentric framing of environmental protection emerged in catalytic judgments. A particular narrative of how the protection of the environment would benefit human rights – especially the right to health, to life and to adequate living conditions or family life, as well as the right to private property and the right to (ancestral) land – was produced and consistently re-affirmed through judicial cross-referencing. This was done by pointing out how environmental harms and ecological deterioration and pollution directly hamper human rights, including those of indigenous peoples and cultural minorities. In so doing, courts played a pivotal role in strengthening environmental protection in relation to human concerns, thereby also consolidating a particular representation of how a protected environment serves human interests and needs. A specific anthropocentric and synergistic understanding of the human–environment is thereby enacted and reenforced.

The use and development of algorithms in health care, including machine learning, contributes to the discovery of better treatments for patients and offers promising perspectives in the fight against cancer and other diseases. Yet, algorithms are not a neutral health product since they are programmed by humans, with the risk of propagating human rights infringements. In the medical area, human rights impact assessments need to be conducted for applications involving AI. Apart from offering a consistent and transversal substantive approach to AI, human rights law, and in particular the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, would allow the targeting of all stakeholders, including the corporations developing health care algorithms. Such an approach would establish a chain of duties and responsibilities bringing more transparency and consistency in the overall process of developing AI and its later uses. Although this approach would not solve all AI challenges, it would offer a framework for discussion with all relevant actors, including vulnerable populations. An increase in human rights education of medical doctors and data scientists, and further collaboration at the initial stages of algorithm development would greatly contribute to the creation of a human rights culture in the techno-science space.

This chapter examines some of the most recent human rights concerns including genocide and racism. It also discusses the impact of COVID-19 on human rights including the relationship between government and human rights, the right to health, and technology, and human rights. The chapter highlights the erosion of democratic institutions but looks to the promising future of human rights.