UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights

Programs

Global Congress

The Global Congress is the UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights' flagship international forum, bringing together scholars, policymakers, practitioners, Indigenous knowledge holders, civil society leaders, and students to address pressing global challenges. The inaugural Congress will take place in 2027, fostering collaboration and advancing practical, justice-oriented solutions in health, race, and human rights.

Congress 2027

Call for Abstracts

UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights Global Congress — Truth-telling, human rights and health justice in an age of global fracture

We invite scholars, legal practitioners, judges, policymakers, public health professionals, and civil society organisations to submit abstracts for the inaugural UNESCO Global Congress on Health, Race and Human Rights, taking place in San José, Costa Rica, from 1–3 February 2027.

Congress Abstract

We are living through a period in which trust in public institutions, scientific expertise, and international law is increasingly contested. Courts, public health bodies, international organisations, and democratic institutions face sustained political pressure, while digital platforms facilitate the rapid spread of misinformation across borders. These developments have coincided with, and in many instances helped facilitate, significant challenges to human rights, the rule of law, and democratic governance, including regressions in civil rights; restrictions on reproductive rights; tightening immigration and asylum policies; reduced humanitarian protections for migrants and refugees; the rollback of environmental protections with disproportionate effects on marginalized communities; and weakening commitments to equality through changes in anti-discrimination law, policy, enforcement, and adjudication. These developments have profound consequences for health, human rights and racial justice. They disproportionately affect racialised communities, Indigenous peoples and other groups whose wellbeing depends on reliable public institutions, evidence-based decision-making and the effective protection of rights.

The UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights invites scholars, legal practitioners, judges, policymakers, public health professionals and civil society organisations to its inaugural International Congress in San José, Costa Rica, from 1–3 February 2027. The Congress will explore how law and institutions can respond to growing challenges to truth, scientific integrity and human rights.

The programme is organised around three themes: (1) understanding contemporary challenges to truth, science and racial justice; (2) identifying legal and policy responses that strengthen accountability and protect health and human rights; and (3) applying critical theory in shaping national, regional and global mechanisms and responses for securing human dignity, racial justice and just health outcomes.

When governments disregard scientific evidence, manipulate knowledge for political or racialised purposes, or undermine the institutions responsible for protecting public health and human rights, the consequences are felt in bodies and communities.

Participants will consider how legal systems should respond to these occurrences. They will also consider whether existing legal frameworks are adequate, what reforms are needed, and how law can better promote accountability, dignity and equitable health outcomes.

Call for Papers

The Congress Organising Committee invites abstract submissions from scholars, researchers, lawyers, public health professionals, advocates, and interested parties working at the intersections of human rights, health, race, and justice. We welcome empirical, theoretical, doctrinal, and comparative contributions addressing—but not limited to—the following thematic areas:

  • •Populism, scientific authority and law: How populist governance reconstructs and weaponizes knowledge, and the role of courts and legal institutions in mediating scientific disputes.
  • •Racialisation of scientific truth: The disproportionate impact of anti-science governance on racialised communities, from colonial medicine to contemporary epistemic injustice.
  • •Substantive Legal Effectiveness and health governance: When formally valid law is scientifically unsound or produces unjust and ineffective outcomes, the implications for dignity and human rights; exploring the conditions of effectiveness and rethinking legal validity in the context of unjust and substantively ineffective health laws and policies.
  • •Global health institutions and legitimacy: The response of WHO, treaty bodies, and regional systems to state resistance to scientific consensus and the politics of expertise in health emergencies.
  • •Digital misinformation, platform governance, and regulatory gaps: Transnational health misinformation and comparative regulatory responses.
  • •Indigenous and diverse knowledge systems: Distinguishing legitimate knowledge diversity from politically motivated anti-science, and the role of international law.
  • •Emergency powers, public health, and rights erosion: Selective use of emergency frameworks, racialised enforcement, and judicial responses.
  • •Accountability and reparative justice: Legal strategies to counter legal, social, and medical harm, the role of scientific institutions as rights actors, and reparative frameworks for affected communities.
  • •The criminalization of health and its implications for health equity and human rights: The intersections of health, race, criminal justice, and human rights, including the intersections between race and the social determinants of health and how they shape pathways to systemic disadvantage; the use of criminal law as a regulatory or enforcement tool in relation to abortion care, mental health, infectious disease control, substance use, homelessness, and other health-related issues, including the use of criminal law as an enforcement mechanism for public health objectives.
  • •Related topics: Racism across domains where law, identity, evidence, and rights claims intersect with contested knowledge and institutional power, including sports and health; biomedical research and public health; public policy and welfare systems; algorithmic governance; immigration and citizenship; and scientific classification, including debates over biological sex and their implications for equality, race, and human rights.

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted in English through the submission site, the Oxford Abstracts submission platform.

The Oxford Abstracts form will ask for a name, title, affiliation, and short bio (100 words).

Panel and roundtable proposals are also welcome. All submissions will be subject to double-blind peer review. Contributors whose submissions are accepted will be invited to present their work at the Congress, and outstanding contributions will be considered for inclusion in a dedicated post-Congress publication.

Abstract Submission Deadline: 21 September 2026

Notification of Acceptance: Contributors will be notified on a rolling basis, with all decisions communicated by 30 September 2026.

Questions and Further Information

If you have any questions regarding the abstract submission process or the Global Congress, please contact us at unescochairhrhr@gmail.com. To learn more about the UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights, our work, and current initiatives, please visit unescochairhrhr.org.