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In his recent commentary, Gorik Ooms argues that "denying that researchers, like all humans, have personal opinions . drives researchers' personal opinion underground, turning global health science into unconscious dogmatism or stealth advocacy, avoiding the crucial debate about the politics and underlying normative premises of global health." These 'unconscious' dimensions of global health are as Ooms and others suggest, rooted in its unacknowledged normative, political and power aspects. But why would these aspects be either unconscious or unacknowledged? In this commentary, I argue that the 'unconscious' and 'unacknowledged' nature of the norms, politics and power that drive global health is a direct byproduct of the processes through which power operates, and a primary mechanism by which power sustains and reinforces itself. To identify what is unconscious and unacknowledged requires more than broadening the disciplinary base of global health research to those social sciences with deep traditions of thought in the domains of power, politics and norms, albeit that doing so is a fundamental first step. I argue that it also requires individual and institutional commitments to adopt reflexive, humble and above all else, equitable practices within global health research.

"Trotz bedeutender Fortschritte bezüglich der Interpretation und Umsetzung des Rechts auf Gesundheit ist die staatliche Pflicht nicht absolut, sondern konzipiert als eine Pflicht der progressiven Realisierung im Rahmen der zur Verfügung stehenden Ressourcen. Dieses Konzept erlaubt es Regierungen, beinahe jedes Niveau von Untätigkeit zu rechtfertigen. Um dagegen vorzugehen, hat der UN-Ausschuss zu wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Rechten (CESCR) die Idee entwickelt, dass Staaten Kernverpflichtungen in Bezug auf Gesundheit haben, insbesondere die Bereitstellung einer Grundversorgung, die nicht von zur Verfügung stehenden Ressourcen abhängig gemacht werden kann. Obwohl der Idee der 'core obligations' von Akademikerinnen und Praktikerinnen viel Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt wird, besteht eine Lücke zwischen dem Anspruch und der konkreten Ausformulierung. Dieser Artikel diskutiert den Nutzen des Konzeptes. Die Autorin erläutert die Genese der Idee der Kernverpflichtungen, weist auf zentrale Stärken und Schwächen hin und zeigt zukünftige Entwicklungs- und Anwendungsmöglichkeiten auf." (Autorenreferat)

Recent years have seen the re-emergence of charges of AIDS exceptionalism in response to 'revolutionary' increases in global funding for health that have coalesced around HIV/AIDS treatment. These increases are argued to illustrate that AIDS demands an exceptional and exaggerated portion of global resources to the detriment of other health needs and the strengthening of health systems. I argue in contrast that AIDS 'exceptionalism' in funding represents a welcome departure from a long-standing norm that tolerates grossly insufficient domestic and global allocations to health. In this light, AIDS 'exceptionalism' while a political anomaly, has acted as a corrective to exclusionary and inequitable HIV/AIDS policies.

This paper explores the legal and normative potential of the right to health to mitigate the restrictive impact of trade-related intellectual property rules on access to medicines, as evidenced by the global outcomes of the seminal pharmaceutical company litigation in South Africa in 2001. I argue that the litigation and resulting public furor provoked a paradigm shift in global approaches to AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. I argue further that this outcome illustrates how human rights in concert with social action were able to effectively challenge dominant claims about the necessity of stringent trade-related intellectual property rights in poor countries, and ergo, to raise the priority of public health needs in related decision-making. I explore the causal role of rights in achieving these outcomes through the analytical lens provided by international legal compliance theories, and in particular, the model of normative emergence proposed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink. I suggest that the AIDS medicines experience offers strategic guidance for realizing the right to health's transformative potential with regard to essential medicines more generally. Adapted from the source document.