Maternal Mortality, Human Rights and Accountability

The scale of maternal mortality and morbidity today is staggering. This book focuses on a vital part of a human rights response to maternal mortality, viz. accountability. Accountability encompasses monitoring, review and redress at the local, national and international levels. The book's context includes the UN Human Rights Council maternal mortality and morbidity resolutions, as well as Millennium Development Goal 5. It comes out of a roundtable conference held in Geneva during 2010 that examined maternal mortality, human rights and accountability and provided a forum where maternal health and human rights experts could listen to, and learn from, each other. As well as revised and updated conference papers, this volume includes a rich collection of additional resource material on maternal mortality, human rights and accountability.

Paul Hunt is a Law Professor at Essex University (UK), Adjunct Professor at Waikato University (New Zealand), and human rights advisor to WHO Assistant Director-General Dr.Flavia Bustreo. He served as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health (2002-2008) and has an Honorary Doctorate from the Nordic School of Public Health.

Tony Gray completed his DPhil in Theology and has publishhed in the area of philosophical theology. After working in the production of personal biographies, he now runs his own publishing services company whilst undertaking freelance research in topics as diverse as family history, religion and human rights.