Trade in torture tools threatens detainees and protestors everywhere - it must be banned.

With social upheaval, economic strain, and political unrest growing, peaceful demonstrations worldwide are increasingly met with brutal tactics by law enforcement and security forces. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture outlines her call for States to negotiate a new international treaty to ban the manufacture, use and trade in "torture tools" and regulate the trade in law enforcement equipment. Her proposal outlines two critical components: a prohibited list of items that she has deemed to be inherently cruel, inhuman or degrading, and a second controlled list of ordinary law enforcement equipment that has a high risk of misuse. Effective international regulation is imper-ative to curb the indiscriminate use of force by law enforcement and to uphold human dignity. Improved national regulation is also required. Research has revealed a pervasive market for these items, with more than 335 companies in 54 countries manufacturing or promoting the most egre-gious torture instruments. Major producers include China, the EU, and the USA, with emerging economies also contributing significantly. The outsourcing of public functions to private security companies further exacerbates the issue, underscoring the pressing need for robust national and international regulations.

Interpreting International Humanitarian Law to Guarantee Abortion and Other Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Armed Conflict.

The provision of basic sexual and reproductive health services in humanitarian settings, including armed conflict, is extremely limited, causing preventable mortalities and morbidities and violating human rights. Over 50% of all maternal deaths occur in humanitarian and fragile settings. International humanitarian law falls short in guaranteeing access to the full range of sexual and reproductive health information and services for all persons. Guaranteeing access to sexual and reproductive health services under international humanitarian law can increase access to services, improving the health and well-being of civilians in conflict zones. This paper sets forth ways in which international human rights law on sexual and reproductive health and rights should be incorporated into the forthcoming International Committee of the Red Cross Commentary on Geneva Convention IV, regarding the protection of civilians, to ensure services in the context of armed conflict.

Wars in Gaza and Beyond: Why Protecting the Sacredness of Health Matters.

This Viewpoint discusses the importance of safeguarding health access in times armed conflict worldwide and the need to bolster compliance with international humanitarian law.

Assessing the Human Rights Framework on Private Health Care Actors and Economic Inequality.

Private actors' involvement in health care financing, provision, and governance contributes to economic inequality. This paper provides an overview of emerging normative trends regarding private actors' involvement in health care by reviewing and critically analyzing international and regional human rights standards on the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Specifically, we survey statements from United Nations human rights treaty bodies and recent jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights that discuss private actors' involvement in health care. We then identify strengths and weaknesses of the current international human rights law framework to address the human rights and inequality impacts of private health care actors, before concluding with a series of recommendations to further develop existing standards.

Healthcare workers' freedom of movement in times of pandemics: an emerging norm of customary international law.

BACKGROUND: A shortage of healthcare workers can hinder the ability to prepare for and respond to global security threats caused by diseases that are prone to pandemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the shortage of healthcare workers became a growing concern worldwide. Recognizing these challenges, countries adopted measures to ensure healthcare workers' freedom of movement in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the WHO continues the negotiation process to reform the 2005 International Health Regulations and to adopt a new Pandemic Treaty, with one key provision relating to healthcare workers' mobility, questions remain as to whether States will actually adopt a binding international legal instrument or whether its effectiveness will be watered down by the intrinsic vulnerabilities of an international legal system that has (too) often been unable to tame geopolitical interests. Considering these challenges, we assessed the emergence of a norm of customary international law allowing the free movement of healthcare workers during pandemics. METHODS: Our study examined the laws and policies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic concerning healthcare workers' mobility in 10 countries, representing all continents. The country selection was based on regional representation and a preliminary analysis indicating their early adoption of measures related to healthcare workers' mobility. Temporal limits were set. To gather relevant data, we employed various methods including research databases, media sources, and the COVID-19 Law Lab database. RESULTS: Our research identified and assessed instances of state practice and evidence of opinio juris to determine whether a norm of customary international law mandating states to ensure healthcare workers' freedom of movement during pandemics exists. The findings indicate a strong consensus towards ensuring the free movement of healthcare workers in times of pandemics as a way to respond to outbreaks of disease. Within months, Argentina, Colombia, Kenya, South Africa, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, ten nations representing most regions of the world, recognized, as law, the practice of excluding healthcare workers from prohibitions on movement. CONCLUSION: Ultimately, this discussion is critical for global health because if a norm does exist in this regard, it will further strengthen pandemic legal preparedness efforts. As such, it becomes clear that the reform of the 2005 International Health Regulations and/or the adoption of a new pandemic treaty will bolster the strength of this emerging norm of customary international law and crystallize it. These legal instruments would propel a norm that is already in the process of formulation into existence. Thus, crystallizing a norm that is otherwise emerging among states.

Increasing compliance with international pandemic law: international relations and new global health agreements.

Across multiple pandemics, global health governance institutions have struggled to secure the compliance of states with international legal and political commitments, ranging from data sharing to observing WHO guidance to sharing vaccines. In response, governments are negotiating a new pandemic treaty and revising the International Health Regulations. Achieving compliance remains challenging, but international relations and international law research in areas outside of health offers insights. This Health Policy analyses international relations research on the reasons why states comply with international law, even in the absence of sanctions. Drawing on human rights, trade, finance, tobacco, and environmental law, we categorise compliance mechanisms as police patrol, fire alarm, or community organiser models. We show that, to date, current and proposed global health law incorporates only a few of the mechanisms that have shown to be effective in other areas. We offer six specific, politically feasible mechanisms for new international agreements that, together, could create compliance pressures to shift state behaviour.

Decolonization of Global Health Law: Lessons from International Environmental Law.

Global health law for pandemics currently lacks legal obligations to ensure distributional and reparative justice. In contrast, international environmental law contains several novel international legal mechanisms aimed at addressing the effects of colonialism and global injustices that arise from the disproportionate contributions to - and impacts of - climate change and biodiversity loss.

Access to healthcare for people living with HIV: an analysis of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights from an ethical perspective.

Introduction: Although HIV has been part of our reality for over 30 years, people living with HIV (PLHIV) still experience restrictions regarding their access to healthcare. This poses a significant ethical problem, especially as it endangers achieving the goal of ending the HIV epidemic worldwide. The aim of this paper is to analyze the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regarding cases where PLHIV experienced restrictions on their access to healthcare. Methods: We conducted an analysis of the ECtHR database and were able to identify N = 28 cases dealing with restricted access to healthcare for PLHIV. A descriptive and thematic analysis was conducted to identify ways in which access to healthcare for PLHIV was restricted. Results: We were able to identify a total of four main categories, with denial of adequate therapeutic support as the main category with N = 22 cases (78.57%). Most of the judgments examined were filed against Russia (N = 12, 42.86%) and Ukraine (N = 9, 32.14%). A large proportion of PLHIV in the cases studied (N = 57, 85.07%) were detainees. Discussion: The analysis shows a clear condemnation of limited access to healthcare for PLHIV by the ECtHR. Ethical implications of the analyzed cases are discussed in detail.

Implementation, compliance, and pandemic legal obligations.

Negotiations ought not focus on enforcement and sanctions.

Equity in the Pandemic Treaty: Access and Benefit-Sharing as a Policy Device or a Rhetorical Device?

Equity is a foundational concept for the new World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Treaty. WHO Member States are currently negotiating to turn this undefined concept into tangible outcomes by borrowing a policy mechanism from international environmental law: "access and benefit-sharing" (ABS).

"The Darkness": Deprivation of sunlight as a form of torture.

INTRODUCTION: Deprivation of sunlight (DoS) should be considered independently as a method of torture. We review the definition and the spectrum of DoS, and the harms it causes that may rise to the level of torture. METHOD: We review relevant international case law, and highlight how the harms of DoS have historically not been fully considered in torture cases, possibly legitimizing its use. CONCLUSION: A standardized definition of deprivation of sunlight be developed and in-cluded in the Torturing Environment Scale, we call for an explicit international prohibi-tion of DoS.

MEDICAL CONTRACTS WITH CONDITIONS CONTRARY TO PUBLIC POLICY.

OBJECTIVE: The aim: To reveal some features of medical contracts with conditions contrary to public policy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and methods: The study is based on the statutory acts of countries of European Union. The author also uses acts of international law in the field of medical services, the law and cases court practice of EU. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: The sphere of medical services objectively requires increased control by the state. There are various legal mechanisms for ensuring the rights of the patient and the proper level of medicine. It is important to invalidate the unfair terms of medical contracts, compensation for losses and moral damage. These remedies are obtained through judicial protection and, in some cases, through other jurisdictional means. It is important to implement European standards in national legislation.

The Impact of the Implementation of International Law on Marine Environmental Protection on International Public Health Driven by Multi-Source Network Comment Mining.

With the increase of people's living space, global warming caused by the decrease of greening urban spaces and the serious decline of greenspace quality has led to extreme weather events and coastal erosion, which has become the biggest threat to the ocean and has also led to the occurrence of international public safety incidents. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to explore the tense relationship between the current marine environmental protection and global public safety for the development of an international healthy community. Firstly, this paper discusses the influence of implementing the international law of marine environmental protection on global public health after the reduction of green urban space and the decline of green space quality. Secondly, K-means and discrete particle swarm optimization algorithms are introduced and the particle swarm optimization-K-means clustering (PSO-K-means) algorithm is designed to screen and deal with the mapping relationship between latent variables and word sets about the impact of implementing the international marine ecological protection law on the international public health community in network data information. Moreover, the influencing factors are clustered and the scenarios are evaluated. The results show that the clustering analysis of the marine environment can promote the clustering of marine characteristic words. Meanwhile, the PSO-K-means algorithm can effectively cluster vulnerability data information. When the threshold is 0.45, the estimated recall rate of the corresponding model is 88.75%. Therefore, the following measures have been formulated, that is, increasing greening urban spaces and enhancing the quality of green space to enhance the protection of marine environment, which has practical reference value for realizing the protection of marine environment and the sustainable development of marine water resources and land resources.