Law Commons^™

Global Health Law: A Definition And Grand Challenges, Lawrence O. Gostin, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

It has been only recently that scholars have engaged in a serious discussion of "public health law." This academic discourse examines the role of the state and civil society in health promotion and disease prevention within the country. There is an important emerging literature on the international dimensions of health, but no similar systematic definition and exposition of a field we call "global health law." In this article we aim to fill this gap by defining global health law and characterizing the grand challenges. Given the rapid and expanding globalization that is a defining feature of today's world, the need …

Global Health Law: Health In A Global Community, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The examination of public health law traditionally focuses on constitutions, statutes, regulations, and common law at the national and sub-national level. However, the determinants of health (e.g., pathogens, air, food, water, even lifestyle choices) do not originate solely within national borders. Health threats inexorably spread to neighboring countries, regions, and even continents. Peoples’ lives are profoundly affected by commerce, politics, science, and technology from all over the world. Global integration and interdependence occur “as capital, traded goods, persons, concepts, images, ideas, and values diffuse across state boundaries.” It is for this reason that law and policy need to be transnational, …

Global Health Law Governance, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The field of public health law traditionally focuses on law at the national and sub-national level. National legal systems, however, are inadequate to deal with major threats to humans. Despite the inadequacies of national governance, there are fundamental questions that need resolution in the field of global health law: Why should governments care about the health of people far away? Are profound health disparities just and, if not, is there a corresponding obligation to redress the injustice? Can international law effectively bind governments, foundations, and corporations to act for the global good? This article, based on a lecture at Emory …

The Deregulatory State, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

Public health can be achieved only through collective action, not through individual endeavor. Collective goods are essential conditions for health, but can be secured only through a well-regulated society. Yet, successive governments have eroded health and safety protections, with serious consequences. Think about the death of miners, lead in children’s toys, industrial solvents in toothpaste, salmonella in peanut butter, e-coli in spinach, and unsafe or ineffective pharmaceuticals such as COX-2 inhibitors or non-statin cholesterol medications.

Conservatives have waged a campaign against the administrative state that has created and reinforced deep-seated concerns about over-bearing government, particularly at the national level. The …

A Theory And Definition Of Public Health Law, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The literature, both academic and judicial, on the intersection of law and health is pervasive. The subject of law and health is widely taught, practiced, and analyzed. The fields that characterize these branches of study are called health law, health care law, law and medicine, forensic medicine, and public health law. Do these names imply different disciplines, each with a coherent theory, structure, and method that sets it apart? Notably absent from the extant literature is a theory of the discipline of public health law, an exploration of its doctrinal boundaries, and an assessment of its analytical methodology.

Public health …

The International Migration And Recruitment Of Nurses: Human Rights And Global Justice, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The international migration of health workers – physicians, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists – leaves the world’s poorest countries with severe human resource shortages, seriously jeopardizing the achievement of the U.N. health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Advocates for global health call active recruitment in low-income countries a crime. Despite the pronounced international concern, there is little research and few solutions. This commentary focuses on the international recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the perspective of human rights and global justice. It explains the complex reasons for nurse shortages in rich and poor countries; the duties of source and host countries; …