IPI Global Observatory: Security Council Can Do More to Protect Health Care in Conflict
Leonard S. Rubenstein, director of the program on human rights, health, and conflict at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and core faculty at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, discusses the need to strengthen a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in May focused on protecting health care in conflict. He writes, “So what action should the Security Council take to further the objectives of its resolution? It must first and foremost ensure civilians in Syria access to aid and medical services without fear of attack. But it needs to take steps [to] change the behavior of governments throughout the world over the short and intermediate term as well. Three actions in particular would advance protection … First, the Security Council should take strong steps toward ending impunity … Second, it should demand that governments and their militaries take actions designed to advance protection of health services — and to report on them publicly … Third, the Security Council should strengthen knowledge about attacks on health care as they occur” (9/27)