Safura Abdool Karim

 Training: regulatory law, human rights law, policy analysis, qualitative research methods, corporate political activity, bioethics.

Research: My overarching research goal is improve the use of law as a health intervention. With increasing recognition of the legal determinants of health, my research investigates the ways in which law can inform the design and implementation of policy interventions to address obesity, the commercial determinants of health, pandemic responses and universal health coverage. In parallel, my scholarship seeks to develop, conceptualize and operationalize a right to public health and recast human rights – so often co-opted in opposition to public health –  as enablers of public health.

Policy impact: My research has informed the development of South African regulations for simplified nutrition labelling, the COVID-19 vaccine compensation fund, and the transition out of the COVID-19 state of disaster. It has also been drawn upon to inform labelling laws in Kenya and Ghana. I have also achieved meaningful impact through litigation including to defend the constitutionality of a certificate of need scheme for private healthcare providers, bring class action litigation against coal mines and successfully challenge the parental leave scheme in South Africa. I also assisted in bringing an amicus intervention for UNAIDS in the challenge to the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Publications: 41 publications, including 15 first author publications, many in high-impact journals (e.g., Nature Food, the Lancet, the International Journal of Human Rights and the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics).

Teaching: acted as a tutor and teaching assistant in various institutions, and have supervised students at the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape and School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand.

Service: Member of Berman Institute, IDARE Committee; Member of the Steering Committee Member for the Africa Health and Human Rights Network; Member of the PABASA, Pupillage and School Committee

Safura Abdool Karim is a public health lawyer focusing on applications of the law and policy to improve public health. She is presently a postdoctoral researcher at the Berman Institute, Johns Hopkins University (and jointly with the Ethox Center, Oxford University).  Her scholarship is on public health and human rights and her research converges on  the legal determinants of health and rights-based approaches to prevention and control of both infectious and non-communicable diseases. Most of her work in infectious diseases has focused on vaccine equity and she has been called upon to advise a number of international bodies on issues of COVID-19 vaccine access in Africa. She also provided technical assistance in developing South Africa’s COVID-19 regulations. With regard to non-communicable diseases, her research has included regulatory interventions such as sugar taxes, sodium restrictions in food and child-directed food marketing and simplified nutrition labelling, with the latter two informing the development of draft regulations for the adoption of front of package warning labels in South Africa. She has led multi-country studies on sugary-beverage taxation and other obesity prevention measures using policy, legal and qualitative research methods. Blending this academic expertise with her legal practice in litigation, Safura has been involved in novel class actions related to occupational lung disease in mines and defending health-related laws including COVID-19 policies and a certificate-of-need requirement for private healthcare providers against constitutional challenges. Her cross-cutting expertise is reflected in her more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in leading legal and public health journals including the Lancet, Nature Food, South African Journal on Human Rights and the Journal of Medicine, Ethics and Law.  She is involved in advisory committees for government departments, the Africa CDC and academic programs. She has been actively involved in translating her research into policy impact through dissemination and knowledge translation and developed this skill further during her fellowship with the Aspen New Voices programme. In summary, Safura is passionate about the law and its key role in human rights, global equity and making the world healthier, safer and better for all.