Health and Human Rights: If Not Now, When?

his is clearly a very exciting and exhilarating time to be working in health and human rights-but it is necessarily also a difficult time. For we are creating, participating in, and witnessing an extraordinary moment in social history-the emergence of a health and human rights movement-at the intersection and at the time of two enormous paradigm shifts. Stimulated in the first instance by pressures within each field, both public health and human rights are undergoing major transformations, so that the linkages between them, and the outcomes of their association have now become dynamic and even more challenging than may have been evident just a few years ago. Fortunately, as the tectonic plates are shif ting in the domains of both public health and human rights, interest in health and human rights has intensified-a reality manifested in, and symbolized by, this 2nd International Conference. This extraordinary situation in which both the public health and the human rights paradigms-and the systems of thought and action which flow from them-are rapidly evolving has become evident during this Conference. The challenge of applying human rights concepts in analysis and response to health problems, such as violence, has helped reveal previously unrecognized difficulties and limitations in traditional human rights work; similarly, efforts to define, expand and protect human rights in health-relevant settings, such as sexual rights and health, uncover substantial gaps or inconsistencies in health thinking and practice.