Release date: April 8, 2005
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or deb.hammacher@emory.edu

Emory Hosts Health & Human Rights Experts

Scholars from more than 40 countries will gather at Emory University next week to explore how the world can make progress toward achieving adequate standards of health as a fundamental right of all people. Public health and development experts will share the latest developments in the field during a three-day conference, "Lessons Learned from Rights-Based Approaches to Health," April 14-16 at the Emory Conference Center Hotel.

"The highest attainable standard of health for all is guaranteed in international conventions on human rights," says Peter Bell, executive director and president of CARE. "But poverty, inequity, civil conflict, discrimination and violence all contribute to denying basic rights to individuals and groups."

Featured speakers include former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health Paul Hunt, along with other leaders in the fields of health and human rights.

Members of the news media are invited to attend. Individual interviews can be arranged with visiting experts on a variety of subjects, including:
• The impact of war and terrorism on public health, including HIV/AIDS infection
• Refugees and HIV/AIDS
• HIV/AIDS in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide
• Infectious disease control in the age of SARS
• Child hunger and children's health (in the U.S. and other countries)
• The impact of racism on health (in the U.S. and other countries)
• Reparations for human rights abuses
• Human trafficking and sexual/reproductive health
• Sexual and gender minorities and health

Media wishing to attend or arrange interviews should contact Deb Hammacher at 404-727-0644 (w), 678-358-6705 (c) or deb.hammacher@emory.edu.

The conference sessions run:
8:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Thursday
8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. Friday, followed by an 8 p.m. performance of "Women and War" by Synchronicity Performance Group
8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Saturday
For full information on the conference schedule and presenters, go to: http://humanrights.emory.edu.

The conference will be held at the Emory Conference Center, 1615 Clifton Road, Atlanta. The registration fee is $275 for students and $400 for the general public. For registration information, call 404-727-3061.

The event is sponsored by Emory's Institute of Human Rights, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, CARE USA, the Carter Center human rights office, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Doctors for Global Health. Generous support is provided by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For more than a decade Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, a comprehensive metropolitan health care system.

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