The December 2019 issue of Health and Human Rights marks its 25th year of publication. Celebrating the occasion, the editors dedicate the issue to founding editor Jonathan Mann and to Albina du Boisrouvray, who, as Mann wrote in his first editorial, “immediately understood, provided the means, and continues to share ideas and inspiration with us.”
Published by the FXB Center since that first issue in 1994, the journal is now welcoming a new partner, Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health, with whom we have a shared history: Jonathan Mann was a founder of the FXB Center and the founding Dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health. The partnership is an opportunity to increase the impact of each institution’s work advancing research, practice, and important discussions about health and human rights, while moving forward with Mann’s original mission for the journal.
Carmel Williams, Joseph J. Amon, Mary T. Bassett, Ana V. Diez Roux, and Paul E. Farmer, representing the new partnership, acknowledge in their editorial the Journal’s contribution to the health and human rights movement over the past 25 years in giving voice to scholars, activists, law and health professionals, policy makers, and students. The extraordinary range of global health and human rights issues and geographies throughout its history is reflected again in the current issue, with 30 papers across four sections, covering Abortion in the Middle East and North Africa, Abortion Law Reform, Human Rights for Health across the United Nations and general papers – see here for the full Table of Contents.
Also launched on Human Rights Day (10 December) was the launch of our new series on the journal website: Viewpoints. This is a series of short commentaries reflecting on the development of the health and human rights movement, its current challenges, future opportunities, and most urgent priorities. Please take a moment to read the first of the series, including two from leaders in health and human rights at the time of Jonathan Mann: Sofia Gruskin and Audrey Chapman.
Photo credit: Lorcan Nagle