Neighbor Tuesday: What's happening at the UN and why it matters to health.

Ukraine, Russia, and health as a human right.

Feb 25, 2025

Yesterday’s vote at the United Nations (UN) was historic - in the worst of ways.

Before I tell you why, I need to tell you a story about Eleanor Roosevelt.

The UN was established in 1945 WWII, succeeding the League of Nations, among 51 member states (think of these as countries and sovereign territories). Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed as the first US delegate to the UN by President Truman and chaired the first UN Commission on Human Rights. She worked tirelessly to promote an equal, post-WWII world which included ensuring a UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights that could serve as a “counterforce to the fear and horror exposed by WWII.” The Charter outlined overarching, transcontinental, multilateral, all-the-world objectives of maintaining peace, ensuring humanitarian aid, upholding international law, and promoting sustainable development for all countries. She played a significant role in making the charter documents easy to read, easily accessible to all, and not merely a “western” document or an “American” document, but rather a document for all people.

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) — Human Rights Day - Women who shaped the Universal Declaration | United Nations https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day/women-who-shaped-the-universal-declaration#:~:text=ELEANOR%20ROOSEVELT&text=She%20served%20as%20the%20first,Universal%20Declaration%20of%20Human%20Rights.

In 1948, President Truman was under pressure to speak against the USSR. Eleanor was who he chose to deliver the remarks. She titled it “The Struggle for Human Rights” and stood up at the podium in September 1948. In the speech, she said the world must take the time

“to think carefully and clearly on the subject of human rights, because in the acceptance and observance of these rights lies the root, I believe, of our chance for peace in the future, and for the strengthening of the United Nations organization to the point where it can maintain peace in the future.” (italics mine).

On December 10th of that same year, the Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly.

That brings me to what happened yesterday, February 24th, 2025.

Yesterday at the UN, the General Assembly met regarding the 3-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They were meeting for a scheduled session on a resolution condemning Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine. It is worth noting that in 2022, a similar session was held to garner support for Ukraine against Russia’s attacks. 141 countries voted in favor in 2022 with 5 voting against. If you watched that 2022 session like I did, you probably remember the powerful and courageous speech by Kenya’s UN Ambassador, Martin Kimani. It took my breath away and said what needed to be said. (Here’s the full speech if you want to watch the moment.)

“This situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon, with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart.
Today, across the border of every single African country, live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds.
At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later…
We chose to follow the rules of the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations charter, not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater, forged in peace.
We believe that all states formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration with peoples in neighboring states. This is normal and understandable. After all, who does not want to be joined to their brethren and to make common purpose with them?
However, Kenya rejects such a yearning from being pursued by force. We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression.
We rejected irredentism and expansionism on any basis, including racial, ethnic, religious or cultural factors. We reject it again today.” - Martin Kimani (italics and bolds are mine)

Fast forward to yesterday (February 24, 2025), and a stunning change happened.

Prior to the meeting yesterday, the European Union had already been working on a resolution, denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a call for peace based on the UN declaration, and a statement on Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. The Trump Administration and Russia, on the other hand, were working on their own (much shorter) statement, and the short America/Russia statement is a shocking contrast to the European Union resolution. (Here’s a screenshot of the US resolution in its entirety.)

Now, the General Assembly had to vote - first on the EU statement and then on the America/Russia one. The EU statement passed, but barely. Instead of the 141 countries voting against Russia's aggression in Ukraine in 2022, now there were only 93. (Of note, yesterday the US voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran and “14 other Moscow friendly countries” against the EU resolution.) Then the American statement was up for a vote. The Assembly proposed a series of amendments to be included, including firmly stating that Russia was the invader of Ukraine and Ukraine should be viewed as sovereign. That resolution passed with 90 in favor - but the US ended up abstaining due to the amendments! This is in stark contrast to the collaboration seen for years and years and years between the US and Europe.

What does all of this mean?

Just three years ago during the 2022 vote, overwhelmingly, countries supported Ukraine and all that entails. To me, that signaled support of not only Ukraine but the UN Declaration, of human rights, of peace and humanitarian aid, of affirming the dignity of people and countries. Here’s how Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry Mariana Betsa talked about it that day in 2022.

UN Security Council adopts neutral US stance on war in Ukraine as Trump pursues peace | Reuters

I wrote a post a few months before the 2022 vote on how Biden ushered in an era of “global neighboring” at the UN after a few years of what I call global-anti-neighboring sentiments through the first Trump administration. Now, the ballgame has changed again on a global level. We all know that geopolitics change with ebbs and flows with new administrations. But yesterday was not an ebb and flow. It was a tidal wave. And, that both worries me and encourages me.

It worries me for our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable, including in Ukraine. But in lots of other countries living in instability, war, famine, aggression, or under the thumb of conquest/colonial-type-leaders. Mark Leon Goldberg, who has been writing about the UN for over 20 years, said in his Substack:

“Today’s vote was not just a procedural moment at the UN. Rather, it may be a harbinger of changes to come. If the most powerful nations no longer stand firmly behind the basic principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, then what remains of the system designed to prevent wars of conquest?”

It encourages me because the majority of countries are still standing up for what the UN Charter stood for all along. Like Ukraine’s foreign minister said in 2022, they are standing up for people to exist, to choose their own path, and live free from aggression.

So are we. But, we are now living in a different world than three years ago and there is definite work to do!

Why is this a global health issue?

My team and I are about to publish a paper showing the detrimental effects of war on children’s health. (I’ll let you know when it comes out.) The results are devastating. I knew it would be bad, but I wasn’t expecting the data to be that bad. There are times when I’m analyzing data, I see the results from the statistical coding for the first time on my computer screen and then cry. That day when I saw the results was one of those days. Anecdotally, we know that war and conflict affect children’s health, disrupting health systems due to bombed hospitals, disruption of medical and humanitarian aid, and the like. But to see the hundreds of thousands of children impacted was shocking. And, it’s not only the major wars and conflicts that affect children’s health. It’s smaller ones too and any neighboring countries. In other words, the impact of war on health is not bound by borders. We also know that those wars and conflicts most often arise from power-grabs and pride, not neighboring. So, the overlap between oppression and children’s health (or inequities or poverty or the risk of diseases) is inextricable.

What I’m struggling to put into words is how deeply the vote yesterday can affect thousands of children’s health on the ground. The changes in geopolitical alignment can disrupt humanitarian aid, and vaccine distribution to combat preventable diseases, and impact health systems when a mother needs an emergency c-section... The recent freezes on foreign aid (like USAID) have certainly disrupted all of that already. The vote yesterday may be a signal of what’s to come to make sure neighboring is much harder to do.

It was a vote with geopolitical shifts from aggressor countries (and those that support them) in NYC - so, it may look like it is far removed from dealing with global health. But there’s always a direct line between power and the poor, between an aggressor and defenseless, and between conquest and health. Health and human rights are always linked.

Let me land the plane and finish with Eleanor Roosevelt again.

Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Quotes. QuotesGram

Where do human rights begin?

As the above quote mentions, Eleanor said it begins in people’s homes, in neighborhoods, in schools, and on farms. In places “so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he [or she] lives in” (italics mine).

If health is a universal human right, like the UN Charter declares and many of you believe, it should not depend on where you live, how much money you have (or don’t), and whether or not your hospital system is at risk of being bombed.

So, the root of universal ‘health as a human right’ is peace. It is neighboring not conquest.

To me, that’s why yesterday’s vote mattered so much. Yesterday signaled a disruption to that peace with trickle-down effects to human rights, including health.

In 2019 and 2023, I had the massive privilege of being at the United Nations with my favorite collabofriend. (If you’ve read my book, he shows up in the dedication, several chapters, and acknowledgments. Told ya he was a fav!)

In 2019, I was on the floor of the giant Assembly Hall, 75 feet high and 165 feet long, surrounded by rooms for interpreters with glass-front walls. (I devoted an entire chapter in my book to this meeting.) I sat on the floor where 193 delegates come together for historic votes, like the vote we saw yesterday. Dr. Tedros, the WHO leader, zoomed in from Africa where he was on the front lines of an Ebola outbreak. And, I remember what he said. That day, 70 years after the UN declaration document was established, Dr. Tedros again reminded us that health is a human right for all and encouraged us to keep that dream alive through our own work. Let’s keep going, neighbors. We have some work to do.

Let me end with a remarkable and sobering clip of the current UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarks at the UN Human Rights Council yesterday. “Human rights are the oxygen of humanity. But one by one human rights are being suffocated.”

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1ECxyJdqDQ/

-Emily

Here’s the full remarks of the UN Secretary-General’s remarks.

My other UN writings, including about the meetings I attended there, are here, here, and here.

Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist

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