70 years of human rights in global health: drawing on a contentious past to secure a hopeful future

70 years ago, Eleanor Roosevelt grounded human rights “in small places, close to home (...) the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice and dignity”. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted on Dec 10, 1948, established a modern human rights foundation that has become a cornerstone of global health, central to public health policies, programmes, and practices. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of this seminal declaration, we trace the evolution of human rights in global health, linking the past, present, and future of health as a human right (figure 1). This future remains uncertain. As contemporary challenges imperil continuing advancements, threatening both human rights protections and global health governance, the future will depend, as it has in the past, on sustained political engagement to realise human rights in global health.