UN Human Rights Council
United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC)
Anna Yeung, Director
Class Year: 2012
Concentration: Social Studies with a Focus Field on the Development of Mental Health Rights
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Favorite Place: My bed (I never get enough sleep!)
Favorite Food: Animal Style In-N-Out Double-Double Burger with a side of Animal Style Fries and a Neapolitan Milkshake
Favorite MUN Moment: It’s a tie between the time I accidentally spelled “Congo” with a “K” and it was projected to a room of 150+ delegates (In my defense, I barely slept the night before!) and the time one of my delegates broke out singing Black-Eyed Peas into the microphone in the middle of a moderated caucus.
Why did you choose these topics? I’m passionate about human rights in the context of public health and healthcare policy, as evident in my chosen focus field. I believe that mental health and access to pharmaceutical drugs are crucial aspects of healthcare that have been tremendously overlooked by policy makers and the public. I hope to inspire more awareness regarding different aspects of healthcare and human rights and challenge my delegates to engage with the issue of human rights from a unique perspective.
HMUN is the best because…I honestly do believe that high school kids are more passionate and engaged than all other groups I’ve worked with! Also, HMUN is a great opportunity for students, especially students who have never been far from home before, to meet and interact with other students from around the world and truly get a sense of what the UN really stands for.
Other thoughts?
Don’t underestimate Boston winters!
Also, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you have regarding the HMUN Human Rights Council, Harvard, college, strategies for running on five hours of sleep, life, or the latest episode of Glee! I sincerely want to make HMUN a valuable and fun experience for everyone and I really look forward to meeting all the delegates at HMUN 2011.
Topics
Topic A: Mental Health Rights
In 1991, the UN passed resolution 46/119, aimed at protecting individuals stricken with mental illness and improvement of the global state of mental healthcare. Nineteen years later, even with the current focus on healthcare reform in the United States, little attention has been paid to the topic of mental health and mental healthcare in the world today. This presents a critical problem because statistics show that mental health is extremely prevalent in countries around the world, with over 150 million individuals affected by depression and 25 individuals affected by schizophrenia.
One major contributor stalling mental healthcare’s improvement is the strong stigma it still bears in many cultures. Furthermore, there remains a lack of understanding and research regarding the issue. Unlike psychical illnesses, where symptoms of the disease can be objectively observed, the causes of many mental disorders still remain murky because they potentially lie within the brain and are difficult to observe. In fact, due to the ambiguous nature of mental disorders, there is a large faction of society who believes that mental illnesses are not legitimate illnesses in the same way that physical disorders are. Therefore, even the legitimacy of mental illness is thrown into question, and the Human Rights Council must therefore critically analyze current standards for classifying a mental disorder.
In the Human Rights Council, we will consider what stance the UN should do to address this furtive issue. We will analyze the committee’s past attempts to address the issue of mental health and strategize potential steps to take in the future. We will look at cultural implications affect our understanding of mental disorders and treatment of mental disorders. We will consider what steps countries should take to educate the public about mental disorders. We will also entertain the debate on whether the UN should create a unified rights system for mental disorders.
Topic B: Access to Pharmaceutical Drugs
During its 12th session in 2009, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution promoting more universal access to necessary medicine, stating that it is the “responsibility of States to ensure access to all, without discrimination, of medicines, in particular essential medicines, that are affordable.” Universal accessibility to pharmaceutical drugs still remains a prominent goal of the global community, promising to save countless lives around the world. This is especially significant in third-world countries, where treatable and preventable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis still claim millions of lives each year because of lack of access to drugs. The Council’s discussion intends to critically analyze current factors that are impeding the accessibility of drugs and to identify key steps that states, the UN, and the global community as a whole must take in order to advance the mission of acces- sibility to life-saving pharmaceuticals.
Central to our discussion of medicine accessibility are international patent laws. Companies invest innumerable resources and time to creating pharmaceutical drugs. However, the UN still believes that everyone should have access to life-saving drugs regardless of whether or not they can afford the high costs associated with patented medicine. In the past, countries have ignored interna- tional patent laws in order to produce generic versions of medicine that their populations desperately needed. These countries defend their actions on grounds that access to life-saving drugs is an inherent right to life, and the concept of patients is unlawful because it infringes on that right. A major focus of the Council’s discussion will center on this debate and the role that the UN must take as an intermediary and whether there is a right to medicine and healthcare.