2013 Symposium

The Harvard Human Rights Journal Presents a Symposium:

Litigating the Right to Health: Comparative Perspectives from Across the Globe

3:15-4: Social

Katharine Young is an Associate Professor of Law at the Australian National University College of Law. Her recent book, Constituting Economic and Social Rights (OUP, 2012), is published in the Oxford Constitutional Theory series. Dr. Young completed doctoral studies at Harvard Law School, law and arts degrees at Melbourne University, and law exchange studies at the University of Heidelberg. She has been a Fellow at a number of interdisciplinary programs, including Amartya Sen’s Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics at Harvard University. Prior to joining the ANU, she taught at Harvard Law School, Boston University School of Law, and Melbourne Law School. Dr. Young has comparative professional experience in the Australia, United States, and United Nations legal systems. She also served as Associate to The Hon. Michael Kirby AC, CMG, at the High Court of Australia.

Julieta Lemaitre is Associate Professor at Universidad de los Andes Law School in Bogotá, Colombia. She holds a law degree (LLB) from the Universidad de los Andes (1995) as well as a Master’s from New York University (1998) and an SJD from Harvard Law School (2007). Her research interests are law and social movements, law and violence, and sexual and reproductive rights. Her recent book, La paz en cuestión (The Peace at Hand, 2011), describes the debates and negotiations around peace and war in Colombia’s 1991 Constitutional Assembly. She is currently working on a three-year (2010-2013) multi-method, multi-sited research project, a collaboration between PRIO and Los Andes, documenting grassroots women organizing and their political participation before courts and governments in the midst of persisting civil strife. This research has explored the many variables that shape rights in Colombia–not just doctrinal developments and civil society engagement, but also local economic histories and political actors, models of governance and development, and national and international financing arrangements.

Colleen Flood is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. She was the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, from 2006 to 2011. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto and is cross-appointed into the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation and the School of Public Policy. Professor Flood obtained her B.A. and LL.B. (Honours) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and her LL.M. and SJD from the University of Toronto, Canada. Her primary area of scholarship is in comparative health care policy, public/private financing of health care systems, health care reform, and accountability and governance issues more broadly.  She has been consulted on comparative health policy and governance issues by both the Senate Social Affairs Committee studying health care in Canada and by the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (the Romanow Commission).

Frederick Abbott, the Edward Ball Eminent Scholar, is highly regarded for his scholarship and professional activities in international intellectual property rights and global economic issues. He is Rapporteur for the Committee on International Trade Law of the International Law Association, consultant to the UNCTAD/ICTSD Project on Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. He is on the Panel of Experts of UNCTAD’s Program on the Settlement of Disputes in International Trade, Investment and Intellectual Property. Professor Abbott serves as panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of International Economic Law (Oxford). He is former Chair of the American Society of Law Intellectual Property Interest Group and the International Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools, and former Director of the American Society of International Law Research Project on Human Rights and International Trade. He is Chair of the Intellectual Property Advisory Committee of the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics.