Law Commons^™

Male Circumcision As An Hiv Prevention Strategy In Sub-Saharan Africa: Socio-Legal Barriers, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

UNAIDS and WHO recommend safe, voluntary male circumcision as an additional, important strategy for the prevention of heterosexually-acquired HIV in men in areas with high HIV prevalence and low levels of male circumcision. Comprehensive male circumcision services should include HIV testing and counseling, partner reduction, and male and female condom use. Yet, male circumcision can have deep symbolic meaning that could pose barriers to implementation. In some parts of the world, it is a traditional practice with religious or cultural significance, in others it is a common hygiene intervention, and in yet others it is unfamiliar or foreign. Consequently, the …

President’S Emergency Plan For Aids Relief: Health Development At The Crossroads, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history, authorizing up to $15 billion over 5 years. On July 30, 2008, President Bush signed into law the historic reauthorization of PEPFAR, dramatically increasing the financial commitment by authorizing up to $48 billion over 5 years, including $5 billion for Malaria and $4 billion for Tuberculosis. PEPFAR’s global targets are inspiring: treat 3 million people; prevent 12 million new HIV infections, and care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children. But, PEPFAR has …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

Ensuring Effective Pain Treatment: A National And Global Perspective, Allyn L. Taylor, Lawrence O. Gostin, Katrina A. Pagonis

O'Neill Institute Papers

Medical availability of effective pain medication is vitally important domestically and globally. Medical advances have substantially improved the technical capacity to control pain and diminish its consequences. Worldwide, millions of persons with chronic, acute, and terminal conditions have found relief from excruciating pain through medical intervention. However, richer countries have disproportionately benefited from improvements in access to and use of pain medication. The tragedy is that for most of the world's population, particularly persons in poorer countries, effective pain control is entirely unavailable.

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; …

The Duty Of States To Assist Other States In Need: Ethics, Human Rights, And International Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, Robert Archer

O'Neill Institute Papers

This article deals with a foreign policy question of extraordinary importance: What responsibilities do States have to provide economic and technical assistance to other states that have high levels of need affecting the health and life of their citizens? The question is important for a variety of reasons. There exist massive inequalities in health globally, with the result that poorer countries shoulder a disproportionate burden of disease and premature death. While poor countries have by far the greatest ongoing health needs, they also have the least capacity to meet those needs. In addition to the pervasive and debilitating effects of …

Addressing The Global Tragedy Of Needless Pain: Rethinking The United Nations Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

The lack of medical availability of effective pain medication is an enduring and expanding global health calamity. Despite important medical advances, pain remains severely under-treated worldwide, particularly in developing countries. This article contributes to the discussion of this global health crisis by considering international legal and institutional mechanisms to promote wider accessibility to critical narcotic drugs for pain relief.