NESRI's blog

"From Private Profits to Public Goods? A Human Rights Assessment of Health Care Reform," by NESRI Health Program Director Anja Rudiger, appears as a chapter in a new book entitled Where Do We Go from Here?

NESRI partner the Vermont Workers’ Center and its Health Care is a Human Right Campaign released a new video today entitled “We Ain’t No Fools.” The video was released in coordination with a series of actions and events throughout Vermont that aimed to demonstrate the Campaign’s opposition to treating health

Despite all the celebrations about the recent federal health reform law, the reform does not meet the key human rights standards of universality, equity, and accountability.  To see why, read NESRI’s newly released statement here.  For a detailed assessment of the reform, download this NESRI presentation given on an

NESRI and the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) are convening parents, students, educators, researchers, and attorneys who want to see school discipline reform included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, or No Child Left Behind). In response to the US House of Representatives’ call for comments regarding the reauthorization of ESEA, the DSC has prepared a sign-on letter presenting it’s broad human rights based recommendations for change.

Because the federal health reform bill signed into law today fails to make health care truly universal and equitable, human right to health care advocates across the country are pushing their state legislatures to implement more effective and comprehensive measures at the state level. In Vermont, for example, the Vermont Workers’ Center’s Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign has galvanized legislative action with a powerful grassroots organizing and advocacy strategy.

Friends and allies of NESRI partner the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) are coming together this Thursday, March 18, at 6 pm at the Trader Joe's near Union Square in New York City as part of the CIW's National Supermarket Week of Action, demanding that Trader Joe's agree to work with the CIW to improve farmworkers' wages and working conditions. See a flyer advertising the action .

Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, will appear before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva tomorrow. There she will present her report entitled “Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Including the Right to Development,” based on her first official Fact Finding Mission to the US in the Fall of 2009.