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Health Law and Human Rights (LAWS70451)
Graduate coursework level 7Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
October
Lecturer
Professor Ian Freckelton QC, Coordinator
Email: law-masters@unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 8344 6190
Website: law.unimelb.edu.au
Overview
Availability(Quotas apply) | October |
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Fees | Look up fees |
This subject will address a range of human rights in the health law area, including bioethical origins of contemporary views of health rights, Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the role of the Special Rapporteur, rights to life and death; rights to health information; rights to civil remedy and compensation for malpractice; rights to coronial investigation of deaths; rights to complain about registered practitioners, public health law rights; and mental health law rights.
Principal topics include:
- Bioethical and human rights to health
- Rights to health
- Rights to health information
- Rights to compensation for malpractice
- Rights to death
- Rights to death investigation
- Rights to complaint and notification.
Intended learning outcomes
A student who has successfully completed this subject will have:
- An advanced and integrated understanding of international and local human rights framework for provision of contemporary health services in Australia
- Been an engaged participant in debates concerning human rights issues in relation to provision of treatment and entitlement to treatment
- Awareness of law in relation to health privacy and critical incident review committee workings
- Appreciation of patients’ entitlements to specific forms of medication, including medicinal cannabis
- A detailed understanding of distinctions in relation to human rights issues between life and death
- Understanding of the concept and repercussions of the body as property, in a variety of rights contexts including burial, cremation, organ donation and post-mortem reproduction
- Sophisticated understanding of the relevance to the law of human rights in relation to the turning off of life support and physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
- Understanding of the law of no further resuscitation
- Awareness of the role of the coroner as a decision-maker in relation to rights to autopsy, exhumation; inquests and decision-making about causes of death
- Understanding of rights issues in coronial practices, findings, and recommendations
- Understanding of rights issues in wrongful life, wrongful birth and wrongful death actions
- An appreciation of rights issues in relation to the investigation and determination of complaints against registered and unregistered health practitioners.
Last updated: 3 November 2022