Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law: What’s “Special” About the System of United Nations Special Procedures?
Thérèse Murphy, professor of law and director of the Health & Human Rights Unit at Queen’s University Belfast, and Amrei Müller, Leverhulme early career fellow within the Health & Human Rights Unit, discuss the role of the U.N. Special Procedures — “a system of independent experts appointed to monitor and report on human rights violations, and more generally to advise and assist in promoting and protecting rights” — and highlight five features that make them “special.” The authors write, “A wide range of Special Procedures hold mandates in the health field, requiring a new way of thinking about human rights law. … If more of us were willing to study the Special Procedures, … we would have a better chance of harnessing the potential of human rights law for meeting global health’s grand challenges” (11/27).