Health, equity, human rights, and the invasion of Iraq

• human rights
• conflict
• equity
• Iraq

During the days culminating in the US-British invasion of Iraq, I was working with a human rights attorney colleague, exploring links and distinctions between health, equity, and human rights. These concepts thus have been in my thoughts, and concern for each leads me to deplore the invasion of Iraq on several counts.

Firstly, given the scale of suffering and death that inevitably accompany war, it is unconscionable to embark on that course, even for a just cause, except as a clearly demonstrated last resort. There is widespread international consensus that reasonable alternatives to war had not been exhausted in this case. …