Confronting catastrophe: norms, efficiency and the evolution of the AIDS battle in the UN

Book review: Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World

“…Have any topics been missed in this volume? First, a separate chapter could perhaps have been devoted to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), given its history in invoking human rights in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic [11] and more recently through its broader global health strategy [12]. Second, a chapter about an institution in global environmental governance would have further enriched the volume, given its ambitious focus on the underlying causes of health and the influences of issues such as climate change, air pollution and biological diversity on global health [13–15].…”

Global governance and the broader determinants of health: A comparative case study of UNDP’s and WTO’s engagement with global health

“…In 1990, Mann resigned as director of WHO-GPA. Among the major reasons were disagreements with then WHO Director-General Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima about 'the importance and strategy of the fight against AIDS' (Hilts, 1990), and that Nakajima's predominant biomedical approach to AIDS conflicted with Mann's broader approach (Leon, 2011;Merson & Inrig, 2018). Over the next years, concerns were increasingly raised about WHO-GPA 'taking too medical an approach to the AIDS epidemic' (Knight, 2008).…”

“…Over the next years, concerns were increasingly raised about WHO-GPA 'taking too medical an approach to the AIDS epidemic' (Knight, 2008). UNDP was a prominent critic of WHO's response to HIV/AIDS, and the intense confrontation between UNDP and WHO over the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been studied in greater detail by others (Balter, 1994;Leon, 2011). Against this background, a defining moment in UNDP's engagement with global health was the founding of UNDP's own programme on HIV and Development to address HIV/ AIDS as a multi-sectoral, human rights issue under the leadership of Elizabeth Reid.…”