Alicia Ely Yamin

 Alicia Ely Yamin JD MPH PhD is a Lecturer on Law and Senior Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, where she directs the Global Health and Rights Project. Yamin currently teaches at Harvard Medical School as well as Harvard Law School and previously was on the faculty of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health (2011-2026).

Beyond Harvard, Yamin serves as Research Leader on Gender, Sexuality and the Law at the Bergen Centre on Law and Social Transformation (Norway) and is the founding editor of the multi-disciplinary Brill/Nijhoff series, “Global Health, Human Rights and Social Justice.” 

Yamin has held distinguished visitorships at a variety of universities around the world including Yale Law School the University of Toronto, the Universidad Torcuato di Tella Law School (Argentina), the University of Connecticut; and the University of Cincinnati School of Law. 

Known globally for her inter-disciplinary work in relation to economic and social rights, reproductive justice, the right to health, and the intersections between development paradigms, political economy and human rights, Yamin’s career has bridged academia and activism.  She has lived in Latin America and East Africa for much of her professional life and worked with local advocacy organizations, including co-founding a program on health and human rights in the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (Lima, Peru; 1999).  In the United States, Yamin served as Director of Research and Investigations at Physicians for Human Rights (2005-2007), Senior Advisor to Amnesty International in its Global Campaign on Poverty, Demand Dignity (2008-2011), and Senior Adviser on Human Rights and Health Policy at Partners In Health (2020-2026).  

In 2016, Yamin was appointed by the UN Secretary General as one of ten international experts to the Independent Accountability Panel for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health in the Sustainable Development Goals (2016-2018, reappointed 2018-2020).  She served as chief consultant to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and drafter of the first guidance on a ‘human rights-based approach to health’ to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2012, which related to maternal health.  

Yamin has served on numerous other UN, WHO and other global expert committees.  She currently serves on the Lancet Commissions on ‘Global Governance and Health 2.0’ and ‘Arctic and Northern Health’, as well as the UNFPA Technical Advisory Group on Sexual and Reproductive Agency.

As a specialist in international and comparative law relating to health and sexual and reproductive rights issues, Yamin regularly submits Amicus Curiae briefs and provides expert testimony to tribunals around the globe. In 2011, Yamin was named by the Colombian Constitutional Court as an Independent Expert on the implementation of T-760/08, a structural judgment that led to significant health system reform. She also served on the oversight committee for health of the Constitutional Implementation Commission in Kenya (2012-2015).

As an expert in reproductive health, Yamin has been the principal investigator on multi-methods, multi-country studies, participated in setting up a maternal health program in Peru, and evaluated the alignment of health programs with human rights standards and principles on behalf of both national governments and international institutions.

Yamin has authored over 200 articles in law, policy and public health/medical journals. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Estonian. A revised and substantially expanded second edition of her latest monograph, When Misfortune becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality, was published by Stanford University Press in 2023, and a Spanish version from the Editorial UniAndes/Siglo (Colombia) came out in 2026.

From 2009-2015, Yamin served as Chair of the Board of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (Vice-Chair, 2001-2008) and continues to serve on the Advisory Council.  She is a current and founding member of the Global Health Law Consortium, as well as co-chair of the Global Health Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law.

Yamin sits on the international advisory boards of the Centre on Law and Social Transformation and the Bergen Centre on Ethics and Priority Setting in Norway, as well as of the Argentine Safe Abortion Access Network (RedAAS) and Proyecto Mirar in Argentina, and the Leadership Council of Our Bodies, Ourselves in the United States.Yamin holds Juris Doctor and Master’s in Public Health degrees from Harvard University, and a Doctorate in Law from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. 

Additional Information

Research Leader, Gender, Sexuality and the Law , Centre on Law and Social Transformation (Norway)

Series Editor: “Global Health, Human Rights and Social Justice,” Brill/Nijhoff Publishers 

Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Universidad Torcuato di Tella (Argentina)