(Re)imagining Global Health, Human Rights and Solidarity

Professor Colin Samson is Professor of Sociology. He works with indigenous peoples and has published several books on their human rights, including A Way of Life that Does Not Exist (2003), A World You Do Not Know (2013) and with Carlos Gigoux, Indigenous Peoples and Colonialism (2017).

His latest book, The Colonialism of Human Rights: Ongoing Hypocrisies of Western Liberalism (2020), analyses racial exceptions and imperial privilege encased in human rights histories, laws, and practice. One of his passions is to promote cultural diversity and resist the homogenization forced on us by colonization, law and capitalism.

Prof. Michael Knipper M.D, is a Professor of Global Health, Migration and Medical Humanities at Giessen University, Germany. He is a physician, medical historian and anthropologist.

Living with indigenous communities in the Amazon region of Ecuador, he discovered his passion for dialogical learning, critical social medicine and human rights-based approaches to health. He was member of the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health and is deeply interested in the social, political and ethical determinants of global health equity.

Martin Drewry (Health Poverty Action) is CEO of Health Poverty Action (HPA), a progressive international NGO rooted in the global People’s Health Movement. HPA sees health as a profoundly political issue. Its 300 staff originate mostly from the communities they work with. Martin played key roles in several large coalition campaigns and was co-founder of the Trade Justice Movement. He was one of the elected team leading Make Poverty History. Graduating in Peace Studies, he began as a grassroots community development worker.

Professor Anuj Kapilashrami is an interdisciplinary social scientist trained in Public Health and Sociology. She is a Professor in Global Health Policy and Equity at the School of Health and Social Care and the Director of the Centre for Global Health and Intersectional Equity Research at the University of Essex.

With extensive research experience in health policy and systems research, her work focuses on health inequalities and structural determinants of health and well-being, particularly among marginalised populations such as migrants. She is the Founding Chair of the Migration Health South Asia network and a long-standing member of the People’s Health Movement. She also serves on the Gender Advisory Panel for WHO’s Human Reproduction Programme.

Anna Peiris is a Director of MedAct.

Professor Dame Parveen June Kumar DBE (UK Health Alliance for Climate Change) is Emerita Professor of Medicine and Education, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. Ambassador to the UK Health Alliance for Climate change. Co-chair on the BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS patient care, Dame Kumar has also been a strong advocate for ethical practice and health equity. In recognition of her contributions to medicine and education, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017.

Parveen worked in the NHS for over 40 years as a physician and gastroenterologist. Her research was in small bowel disorders. She has taught and examined (post -graduate degrees and as MRCP senior examiner) students and doctors all over the world. She is a past President of the British Medical Association, the Royal Society of medicine, the Women’s Medical Federation, the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, and Vice President and Censor at the Royal College of Physicians. She was a founding Non-Executive Director of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Chairman of the Medicines Commission UK. She co-founded and co-edited the textbook “Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine” which is used worldwide.

Trustee of many charities, she has received many hon degrees and awards including the BMJ award for ‘outstanding contribution to health’ in 2019. She was awarded CBE in 2000 for services to medicine and education, and DBE in 2017. Passionate about global health and advocacy in trying to achieve net zero.

Dr Jo Vearey is an Associate Professor and Director of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at Wits University. She has a background in public health and her interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersections between migration and health. She directs the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence in Migration and Mobility and is co-lead of the ARUA-Guild Cluster of Research Excellence (CoRE) in Migration and Health.

Jo is committed to social justice, her research explores ways to generate and communicate knowledge to improve responses to migration, health and wellbeing. Fundamental to her research practice is participation in policy processes at international and local levels, including exploration of approaches to address epistemic injustice in the development of appropriate policy responses.

Dr Judith Bueno de Mesquita is a senior lecturer in International Human Rights Law at Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre.

With over two decades working at the intersection of international human rights law and global public health, her current research focuses on food systems, climate change, health and rights as well as postgrowth approaches and their human rights implications.

Ravi Ram (Kampala Initiative) is a health systems evaluator and specialist with a focus on community health, equity, gender, and social accountability, as well as primary health care (PHC) and universal health coverage (UHC). Based in Nairobi, he is actively involved in South-South collaboration and advocacy through networks such as the People’s Health Movement (PHM), COPASAH, and the Kampala Initiative.

Jonathan Glennie (Global Cooperation Institute) is a globally recognised expert and researcher on development cooperation in a new era, including development finance, the role of the private sector, INGOs and civil society, human rights, conflict and land use, and new frontier issues such as sustainability, inequality and governance. Advisor to governments and major international organisations/foundations on strategy and policy. 25 years implementing complex international development operations, ranging from running a USD2m NGO, to managing large, cross-country research and evaluation projects. Senior positions in several international organisations, including Ipsos, Save the Children, ODI and Christian Aid. Director of new thinktank, the Global Cooperation Institute. Co-founder of Global Nation and Global Public Investment Network. Well-known analyst and commentator online, in print and at conferences around the world. Helped set up The Guardian‘s Global Development website, regular columnist. Author of The Future of Aid: Global Public Investment (Routledge, 2021), Aid, growth & poverty, with Andy Sumner (Palgrave, 2016) and The trouble with aid: Why less could mean more for Africa (Zed, 2008).