The Political Systems Driving Abuse in Psychiatry: An Interview with Human Rights Lawyer Alicia Ely Yamin

About this episode

Alicia Ely Yamin discusses the intersection of human rights and mental health systems, focusing on accountability and institutional power.

Alicia Ely Yamin is the Director of the Global Health and Rights Project and a lecturer at Harvard Law School. She's also an adjunct senior lecturer on health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Senior Advisor on Human Rights and Health Policy at Partners in Health. Alicia is known globally for her work on the right to health, economic and social rights, and reproductive justice. She has spent much of her professional life in Latin America and East Africa, including co-founding a health and human rights program with the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos in Lima in 1999. She has served in major UN and global expert roles, including as one of 10 experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the Independent Accountability Panel from 2016 to 2021. Alicia has edited and authored over a dozen books and UN reports, and close to 200 articles. Her most recent book, When Misfortune Becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality , was published in a revised and expanded second edition by Stanford University Press in 2023, with a Spanish edition forthcoming in 2026. Today, we're bringing her human rights lens to our…

People in this episode

Guest: Alicia Ely Yamin

Topics covered

• human rights
• mental health
• psychiatry
• accountability
• consent
• institutional power

Keywords

• mental health
• psychiatry
• human rights
• Alicia Ely Yamin
• accountability
• consent
• institutional power

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Law School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Partners in Health, Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos, UN

Books & works: When Misfortune Becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality

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