There’s a free, comprehensive legal research tool available online that anyone interested in health and human rights needs to know about: the Global Health and Human Rights Database.

The Global Health and Human Rights Database offers an interactive, searchable website of case law, national constitutions, and other legal instruments from over 115 countries and in 25 languages. It provides free summaries of over 1,300 cases and over 215 original translations of judgments that are not available elsewhere in English. The Database is a joint project managed by Lawyers Collective, an NGO based in New Delhi, India, and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Users can search judgments by country, by health topic, or by human right. A plain-language summary of each case is provided for quick reading, and the full text of the original judgment, as well as an English translation, are available for free download. Cases are tagged by health topics as varied as HIV/AIDS, medicines, sexual and reproductive health, prisons, and environmental health, as well as by any human rights mentioned by the court in a judgment such as the right to health, the right to privacy, or the right to be free from discrimination. By accessing the world map from the homepage of the Database, a user can click on any country and instantly see how many health-related judgments from that country are available for free download. Judgments can also be searched by regional body, such as the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or by international body, such as the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

A global network of volunteers helps ensure that the Database remains an up-to-date resource. If you are interested becoming a volunteer translator, please contact kelly@globalhealthrights.org.