Older Persons and the Right to Health in the Nordics during COVID-19.

We reflect on the extent to which Nordic countries have safeguarded the right to health of older persons during the pandemic in 2020. All Nordic states have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and thereby committed to recognising the right to health. We use the AAAQ framework developed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to draw attention to aspects of the respective states' responses. The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on the health of older persons, from the direct effects of the virus, such as illness and death, to indirect impacts, like isolation and loneliness. We find that Nordic states have at times failed to prioritise the full realisation of the core obligations of the right to health for older persons, namely, non-discrimination and provision of essential healthcare. Resource constraints cannot justify discrimination or failure to respect autonomy, integrity and human dignity.

The Genetic Discrimination Observatory: confronting novel issues in genetic discrimination.

Genetic discrimination (GD) is the differential or unfair profiling of an individual on the basis of genetic data. This article summarizes the actions of the Genetic Discrimination Observatory (GDO) in addressing GD and recent developments in GD since late 2020. It shows how GD can take many forms in today's rapidly evolving society.

The invisible child of personalized medicine.

This article seeks to bring the invisible child of personalized medicine out from the shadows through legal analysis and empirical data. It uses Denmark as a case to argue that existing policies, laws and practices on personalized medicine neglect the legal and ethical issues specific to children. The article investigates Danish laws and practices in clinical genetics and describes how the law neglects children's right to self-determination in three ways. Firstly, while child participation is provided for by law, no guidelines have been created to operationalize this norm. Secondly, children's right not to know is inadequately reflected in current policies. Thirdly, the storage of information from prenatal genetic sequencing raises important issues that are in need of reflection. Several recommendations are made, including for strengthening children's participation and limiting parents' access to secondary findings where they relate to untreatable or unpreventable conditions. It furthermore recognizes, however, that children's self-determination in some circumstances should be viewed relationally due to the interconnected nature of genetics.

The Rights of Elders in Ireland during COVID-19.

This article reflects on COVID-19 restrictions imposed on elders in Ireland through the lens of the right to private and family life (Article 8 ECHR), focusing on stay at home orders and recommendations advising elders to avoid social contact. Furthermore, we examine restrictions on visiting nursing homes given the high death toll in that setting. In our analysis, we zero in on the principles of foreseeability and proportionality, highlighting areas of concern and aspects that we submit should be considered in a proportionality assessment. Ultimately, we argue that it is a mistake to view the COVID-19 pandemic solely as an emergency. In this manner, the solutions suggested through the law - restrictions on movement and visitation bans - are too narrow and fail to address the underlying structures, such as, issues in the healthcare system, the limited home help for elderly and poor conditions in nursing homes.

Towards standardization guidelines for in silico approaches in personalized medicine.

Despite the ever-progressing technological advances in producing data in health and clinical research, the generation of new knowledge for medical benefits through advanced analytics still lags behind its full potential. Reasons for this obstacle are the inherent heterogeneity of data sources and the lack of broadly accepted standards. Further hurdles are associated with legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of personal/patient data across disciplines and borders. Consequently, there is a need for broadly applicable standards compliant with legal and ethical regulations that allow interpretation of heterogeneous health data through in silico methodologies to advance personalized medicine. To tackle these standardization challenges, the Horizon2020 Coordinating and Support Action EU-STANDS4PM initiated an EU-wide mapping process to evaluate strategies for data integration and data-driven in silico modelling approaches to develop standards, recommendations and guidelines for personalized medicine. A first step towards this goal is a broad stakeholder consultation process initiated by an EU-STANDS4PM workshop at the annual COMBINE meeting (COMBINE 2019 workshop report in same issue). This forum analysed the status quo of data and model standards and reflected on possibilities as well as challenges for cross-domain data integration to facilitate in silico modelling approaches for personalized medicine.

Teaching Health and Human Rights in a Globalised Classroom.

This article outlines the importance of human rights in the health law curriculum. The author reflects on her experiences of teaching Health and Human Rights at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. Health and human rights, it is argued, can have important implications for students' understanding of health and the role of law. Namely, it underscores the obligations of states and the rights of individuals, as well as the need for health laws and policies to respect rights. This approach prohibits health laws that discriminate or stigmatise. Furthermore, it is put forth that the growing body of socioeconomic rights jurisprudence should be integrated into teaching. Equally, students should be prepared for the needs of the modern labour market: interdisciplinarity and digitalisation, and to assess the human rights implications. Finally, educators must acknowledge and discuss the limitations of rights so that students are equipped to address and solve challenges.