Are John Knudsen
Fellow
Senior Researcher, CMI
Litigating the Right to Health
Abstract: The project investigates whether litigation can make health policies and -systems in poor countries more equitable by forcing policy-makers and administrators to take seriously their human rights obligations. Cases regarding the right to health care are increasingly brought before the courts. In a number of low- and middle-income countries – first in Latin America, […]
How does litigation affect health financing?
Ottar Mæstad, Octavio Ferraz, Alicia Ely Yamin, Ole Frithjof Norheim, Siri Gloppen (2010)
WHO (Technical Brief Series no. Brief No 15) 2 p.
In the last fifteen years, judicial claims to secure health services as a matter of right have become an important phenomenon in a number of countries including South Africa, India, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Costa Rica. Little systematic empirical information is available with respect to the impact on health financing of such litigation. However, a […]
Judicial independence and human rights in Latin America: Violations, politics and prosecution
Elin Skaar (2011)
New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 297 p.
In many Latin American countries, former military officers are now facing charges of torture, murder, forced disappearance, and genocide committed under the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. Why is this happening now, years after the transition to democracy? And why are courts in some countries leading the way? This comparative analysis, focusing on the […]
Legal enforcement of social rights: Enabling conditions and impact assessment
Siri Gloppen (2010)
in Erasmus Law Review vol. 2 no. 4 pp. 465-480
This article commends the concise and useful analysis of courts and the legal enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights given in Christian Courtis’ book, Courts and the Legal Enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Comparative Experiences of Justiciability. Yet, in order to complete the picture, a broader analysis of the enabling conditions for […]
Judicial Independence and Judicialisation of Electoral Politics in Malawi and Uganda
Siri Gloppen, Fidelis Edge Kanyongolo (2012)
in Danwood Chirwa, Lia Nijzink: Accountable Goverment in Africa. United Nations University Press
Human rights-based approaches to development: Concepts, evidence, and policy
Varun Gari and Siri Gloppen (2012)
in Polity vol. 44 no. 4 pp. 485-503
This article aims to organize thinking around human rights-based approaches to development (HRBAs) and to review available empirical evidence regarding their benefits, risks, and limitations. We propose a typology distinguishing four types of rights-based approaches: global compliance based on international and regional treaties; human rights-based programming on the part of donors and governments; rights talk; […]
Courts and power in Latin America and Africa
Siri Gloppen, Bruce M. Wilson, Roberto Gargarella, Elin Skaar, and Morten Kinander (2010)
New York: Palgrave Macmillan 231 p.
Why do courts hold political power-holders accountable in some democratic and democratizing countries, but not in others? And, why do some courts remain very timid while others—under seemingly similar circumstances—become “hyper-active”? These are questions of central theoretical and practical importance in a context of increasing juridification of politics in many parts of the world, combined […]
Can courts bring social justice? Rights based welfare policy in a comparative perspective
In light of diverse experiences around welfare rights over the last two decades, this talk asks: What difference does it make that social policy is rights-based? Does it make courtrooms central sites of welfare policy- and if so, how do judges deal with these deeply political issues, and to what effect? And does it matter […]
Elin Skaar
Research Leader for the Courts, Transitional Justice & Judicial Behaviour Unit
Senior Researcher, CMI