Leonard S. Rubenstein

Leonard Rubstein is president and former executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that mobilizes the health professions to advance human rights. He proposes to research and develop a “coherent approach to health in conflict.” He will integrate emerging elements of human rights law and humanitarian law and practice that have not previously been applied to the protection of health in conflict.

Rubenstein has spent the past 30 years engaged in investigation, analysis and advocacy in the field of health and human rights domestically and internationally, in areas including human rights and health systems in the developing world; the protection of health in armed conflict, including accountability mechanisms; health in post-conflict reconstruction; gender, racial and ethnic inequality in health; human rights and health dimensions of national security policy; and the roles and responsibilities of health professionals in advancing health and human rights.

Rubenstein is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the Governing Council of the American Public Health Association and the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations. He has been a consultant to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Congressional Minority Caucasus’ Healthcare Hero Award, the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area’s Louis B. Sohn Award, the Physicians Forum Edward K. Barsky Award, the National Mental Health Association’s Mission Award, and the Political Asylum Representation Project’s Outstanding Achievement Award.

He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University, M.A. and J.D. from Harvard University and an LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center.

Publications:

• "Dual Loyalty among Military Health Professionals: Human Rights and Ethics in Times of Armed Conflict," (co-author) Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (Vol. 15, No. 4, 2006).
• "Coercive US Interrogation Policies: A Challenge to Medical Ethics," (co-author) Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 294, No. 12, 2005).
• "How International Human Rights Organizations can Advance Economic, Social and Cultural rights," Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 26, No. 4, 2004).
• "Dual Loyalty and Human Rights in Health Professional Practice: Proposed Guidelines and Institutional Mechanisms," (co-author) Physicians for Human Rights (March 2003).