Eszter Kismödi

Eszter Kismödi, JD, LLM., is an international human rights lawyer on sexual and reproductive health law, policy and research. For the past 15 years her work has focused on developing ways in which legal and policy development, health programmes and research can be shaped  to  improve the respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights laws and the achievement of sexual and reproductive health.

She worked as a human rights adviser at the World Health Organization (WHO), Department of Reproductive Health and Research for ten years (2002-2012) contributing to the work of United Nations treaty monitoring bodies, the Human Rights Council, United Nations Special Rapporteurs and regional and national legislative and human rights bodies. Her working experience extends to Europe in particular Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South-East Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America.

Most recently she was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School. Presently she works as an independent human rights lawyer for a number of United Nations agencies, international organizations and NGOs. She is a core member of the Network on Rights Oriented Research and Education (RORE), an editorial member of Reproductive Health Matters, and she was the member of WHO’s Ethics Review Committee for 4 years.  She is the author of and contributor to several WHO publications and she published extensively in international journals.

Her present work includes the contribution to the reclassification of gender expression and other sexuality related matters regarding the WHO ICD 11 (International Classification Diseases) process, in particular related to legal, policy and human rights matters. Her work focuses on a review and analysis of legal and policy issues that affect the provision and utilization of health services by affected populations, and the exploration of the interactions and relationships of present classifications with health care, administrative, civil laws, criminal and insurance laws and policies, as they impact the provision of and access to health services.

Given the scope of this work she engages Yale graduate students in human rights, legal, policy and public health aspects of gender expression and sexuality related matters.