Health Law and Policy Commons^™

B.Y.O. Heroin: Will Canada Finally Recognize The Fundamental Rights Of Injection Drug Users By Providing Access To Safe Injection Facilities?, Robert Marston

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Ebola: Towards An International Health Systems Fund, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa is spiraling out of control, but it never had to happen. What can the international community do now to bring the epidemic under control, and how can we prevent the next one?

The counties most affected by Ebola (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone), rank among the lowest in global development, lacking essential public health infrastructure. If the affected countries had adequate public health systems, they probably would have contained Ebola within rural settings, avoiding the first outbreak in major urban areas.

More than 130 health workers have died from …

Multipolarity, Intellectual Property And The Internationalization Of Public Health Law, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

This Article critically examines the proliferation of international legal agreements addressing global health threats like the outbreak of infectious diseases, tobacco use and lack of access to affordable medicines. The conventional wisdom behind this trend is that a global normative shift has occurred which has caused states to regard health as “special” and less subject to the normal rules of international law making because health threats endanger all of humanity. This Article challenges that thesis, arguing that at the same time the number and scope of international health law treaties has grown, developed states have subordinated health law to intellectual …

Global Rules For Global Health: Why We Need An Independent, Impartial Who, Devi Sridhar, Julio Frenk, Lawrence O. Gostin, Suerie Moon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the past few years the World Health Organization (WHO) has been undergoing a significant reform process. The immediate trigger was a budget crisis in 2010 that spurred massive lay-offs at the global agency. But at a more fundamental level, deeper systematic changes in global health governance have made reform imperative. While WHO reform draws relatively little attention outside diplomatic circles in Geneva, at stake are critical issues that will impact public health everywhere. This article’s key messages are:

• Recent outbreaks of MERS highlight the need for a global response to infectious disease
• The WHO has had a crucial role …

Global Health And The Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, Devi Sridhar

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The last two decades have brought revolutionary changes in global health, driven by popular concern over AIDS, novel influenzas, and maternal mortality. Given the rapid globalization that is a defining feature of today’s world, the need for a robust system of global health law has never been greater. Global health law has been defined as the legal norms, processes, and institutions designed primarily to attain the highest possible standard of physical and mental health for the world’s population. Global health law is not an organized legal system, with a unified treaty monitoring body, such as the World Trade Organization. There …

Cholera As A Grave Violation Of The Right To Water In Haiti, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak, Steven D. Schwinn, Beatrice Lindstrom

Faculty White Papers

This report is submitted to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation concerning the United Nation’s responsibility in spreading cholera in Haiti as a violation of the right to water and sanitation. The submission discusses violations of the right to water, including the role of United Nations peacekeepers in introducing the virus to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. The report addresses the United Nations’ unwillingness to accept responsibility for its role in the outbreak and its failure to establish redress mechanisms for victims affected by the cholera epidemic. It further discusses the …

Millennium Development Goal 4, Children's Health And Implementation Challenges In Africa: Does A Human Rights Based Appoach Suffice?, Obi Nnamuchi

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

That the state of children’s health in Africa is abysmal is incontrovertible. Proof, if there is need for one, is the perennial underperformance of the vast majority of countries in the region in key dimensions of children’s health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, the point of interest in health policy literature is not on the underperformance per se but on the underlying causes and possible antidotes – a reason Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 (on reducing child mortality) holds special significance for countries in the region. This paper advances scholarship in this very critical area by projecting human rights as holding the …

The Global Health Security Agenda In An Age Of Biosecurity, Lawrence O. Gostin, Alexandra Phelan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Historically, the Oval Office has been a leader in global health assistance. From the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) under the Bush Administration, to the Global Health Initiative launched by President Obama in 2009. However, unlike PEPFAR and PMI, the Global Health Initiative met an untimely end with the launch of a bold new global health measure by the Obama Administration: the Global Health Security Agenda (GHS Agenda). The GHS Agenda aims to “accelerate progress toward a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats” through a US-led diplomatic collaboration with 30 …

Governing For Health As The World Grows Older: Healthy Lifespans In Aging Societies, Lawrence O. Gostin, Anna Garsia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

So much of global health governance focuses intensely on a brief moment in the human lifespan—from a safe birth to infant and child survival. Yet, with all the attention to this early window of life (infancy to age five), the opposite end of the life spectrum is comparatively neglected. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) do not mention a healthy lifespan or a healthy old age. This inadequate attention to the older years of the life appears to be a glaring omission given the universal challenges posed by aging societies. Aging is a demographic fact in almost all countries, but it …

Do No Harm: The Dispute Over Access To Health Care Between Israel And The Palestinian Territories, Emma Glazer

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the legal dispute over access to healthcare between Israel and the Palestinian Territories under International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It argues that while IHL obligates Israel to provide medical services to Palestinians injured in conflict, it does not require unrestricted access for routine healthcare. The analysis highlights the need for Israel to balance its security interests with humanitarian obligations, ensuring access to healthcare while maintaining necessary restrictions. The note also suggests that as the Palestinian Territories pursue statehood, they should develop their own advanced healthcare facilities to reduce reliance on Israeli institutions.

The Affordable Care Act And International Recruitment And Migration Of Nursing Professionals, Helen D. Arnold

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Through its various provisions, the Affordable Care Act will insure more than thirty million Americans by January 1, 2014. This dramatic increase in coverage will have significant effects on both the U.S. economy and its healthcare system. Nursing professionals make up a large portion of the U.S. healthcare system and with a dramatic nursing shortage already in place, employers increasingly look abroad to fill nursing vacancies. Due to the increasing effects of globalization, foreign nurses have become an integral part of the U.S. healthcare system. This note argues that the increased coverage created by the Affordable Care Act will increase …

"At The Hospital There Are No Human Rights": Reproductive And Sexual Rights Violations Of Women Living With Hiv In Namibia, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

This report documents the ongoing stigma and discrimination of women living with HIV in Namibia, building on prior findings and investigations on the subject, such as the 2008 research conducted by the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and the Namibian Women’s Health Network (NWHN). The report, based upon both desk research and a field mission, examines the human rights situation related to sexual and reproductive health of women living with HIV, including the gravity and ongoing nature of forced and coerced sterilizations in Namibia. The report also provides evidence of violations of informed consent in the context …

Protecting Rights And Building Capacities: Challenges To Global Mental Health Policy In Light Of The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The World Health Organization (WHO) has in the last decade identified mental health as a priority for global health promotion and international development, to be targeted through promulgation of evidence-based medical practices, health systems reform, and respect for human rights. Yet these overlapping strategies are marked by tensions as the historical primacy of expert-led initiatives is increasingly subject to challenge by new social movements — in particular, disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs). These tensions come into focus upon situating the WHO’s contributions to the analysis of global mental health in light of the negotiation and early stages of implementation of the …

International Health Emergencies In Failed And Failing States, Chiara Giorgetti

Law Faculty Publications

Global health emergencies, particularly those occurring in Jailed and Jailing States, can become threats to the stability of the international community. This Article assesses the international mechanisms available to respond to such emergencies. After defining global health emergencies, it discusses the implications of global outbreaks in Jailed and Jailing States. It then examines the role played by the World Health Organization in controlling global health emergencies, with particular reference to the newly amended 2005 International Health Regulations and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Finally, it explores the role of other international organizations, including the United Nations Children's Fund …

Is Circumcision Legal?, Peter W, Adler

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

An important, divisive, and unanswered question of American law - and indeed of international law - is whether it is legal to circumcise healthy boys. American medical association and experts assert that circumcision is a common, safe, and relatively painlesss procedure with many medical benefits that exceed the risks. They argue that insurance should pay for it. Some religious organizations argue that circumcision is a sacred religious ritual. In any event, proponents claim that parents have a general and religious right to make the circumcision decision. They can point to the fact that no physician has ever been held liable …

Is Circumcision Legal?, Peter W, Adler

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

An important, divisive, and unanswered question of American law - and indeed of international law - is whether it is legal to circumcise healthy boys. American medical association and experts assert that circumcision is a common, safe, and relatively painlesss procedure with many medical benefits that exceed the risks. They argue that insurance should pay for it. Some religious organizations argue that circumcision is a sacred religious ritual. In any event, proponents claim that parents have a general and religious right to make the circumcision decision. They can point to the fact that no physician has ever been held liable …

Satmed: Legal Aspects Of The Physical Layer Of Satellite Telemedicine, Stephen Rooke

Michigan Journal of International Law

In 2003, Paul Hunt, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, presented a report on the global availability of health care. Special Rapporteur Hunt argued that states are obligated to implement a right to health. Included in this right is the obligation "to ensure that no international agreement or policy adversely impacts upon the right to health, and that .. . international organizations take due account of the right to health, as well as the obligation of international assistance and cooperation, in all policy-making matters." One area Hunt left unexplored in his report was …

Trips And Bits: An Essay On Compulsory Licenses, Expropriation, And International Arbitration, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

This essay examines the potential for arbitration to resolve disputes between private companies and developing countries over the propriety of compulsory licenses. At bottom, my thesis is that arbitration supplies the medium through which to mediate the tension between the profit-seeking goals of private multinational companies and the development goals of foreign nations, especially in the developing world. The compulsory license debate raises a clash of fundamental interests between the patent holder, the patent holder’s state, and the host state. Arbitration can play an important role in balancing those interests, albeit a highly unusual one. Arbitration provides an essential forum …

Bridging International Law And Rights-Based Litigation: Mapping Health-Related Rights Through The Development Of The Global Health And Human Rights Database, Benjamin Mason Meier, Oscar A. Cabrera, Ana Ayala, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the World Health Organization, and the Lawyers Collective have come together to develop a searchable Global Health and Human Rights Database that maps the intersection of health and human rights in judgments, international and regional instruments, and national constitutions. Where states long remained unaccountable for violations of health-related human rights, litigation has arisen as a central mechanism in an expanding movement to create rights-based accountability. Facilitated by the incorporation of international human rights standards in national law, this judicial enforcement has supported the implementation of rights-based claims, giving …

Public Health Regulation: The Impact Of Intersections Between Trade & Investment Treaties In Asia, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There has been an explosive growth of free trade agreements (FTAs) in recent years. The World Trade Report 2011 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) shows Asian members to be among the most active in signing preferential trade agreements. This unprecedented growth has attracted much academic and policy discussion on aspects such as their effects on trade liberalization, problems raised by specific trade and investment provisions, dispute settlement, and concerns over “regionalism”. Like such areas, public health regulation has been significantly affected by such treaties. FTAs, together with bilateral investment treaties (BITs), are rapidly forming a source of intersecting state …

International Tobacco Litigation's Evolution As A United States Torts Law Export: To Canada And Beyond?, Richard L. Cupp Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

In the late 1990’s, the states’ healthcare reimbursement lawsuits against the tobacco industry were settled for approximately $246 billion. In the wake of this enormous settlement, many similar lawsuits were initiated in other nations or by other nations. Most of these early healthcare reimbursement lawsuits failed. However, in 2005, the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was finalized by over 150 nations, and today has been ratified by 168 nations. The Framework encourages nations to consider tort litigation against tobacco sellers as a way to limit tobacco usage. Canada’s provinces have been particularly aggressive in seeking to use …

Renewing Healthy Competition: Compulsory Licenses And Why Abuses Of The Trips Article 31 Standards Are Most Damaging To The United States Healthcare Industry, Jon Matthews

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Shifting Public Health Priorities And The Global Effort To Prevent A Bird Flu Pandemic, Robert Gatter

All Faculty Scholarship

Global strategy to control highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has changed dramatically since 2003 when it was first reported that a confirmed bird flu jumped the species barrier to infect a human in Hong Kong. Evidence of this shift in priorities in the global fight against HPAI can be found most clearly in program funding trends. In late 2008 and into 2009, financial commitments from international donors for all HPAI programs dropped significantly. Meanwhile, within HPAI programs, funding shifted substantially away from animal biosecurity projects and into human response and preparedness work. This Article examines three reasons for this shift …

Dynamics Of Healthcare Reform: Bitter Pills Old And New, Christopher N.J. Roberts

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The United States is at a crossroads--albeit one it has visited several times before. Although the Supreme Court has ruled upon the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the polarizing controversy surrounding national healthcare that began several generations ago is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. In this latest round of national debates, the issue of healthcare has been framed exclusively as a domestic issue. But history shows that the question of national healthcare in the United States has also been an extremely important issue for international law and international politics. To shed light on the …

Who’S Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework: A Milestone In Global Governance For Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, David P. Fidler

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In May 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits (PIP Framework). The PIP Framework’s adoption ended years of difficult negotiations, which began after Indonesia refused to share samples of avian influenza A (H5N1) with WHO in late 2006. Indonesia justified its actions on the need to create more equitable access for developing countries to benefits, such as vaccines and antivirals, derived from research and development on shared influenza virus samples. The global health community feared that failure to share influenza virus samples …

The Joint Action And Learning Initiative: Towards A Global Agreement On National And Global Responsibilities For Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman, Gorik Ooms, Thomas Gebauer, Narendra Gupta, Devi Sridhar, Wang Chenguang, John-Arne Røttingen, David Sanders

O'Neill Institute Papers

A coalition of civil society organizations and academics is initiating a Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) to research key conceptual questions involving health rights and responsibilities, with the goal of securing a global health agreement andsupporting civil society and community mobilization around the human right to health. The social mobilization is critical to creating the political space that would make such an agreement possible and to ensuring its implementation.

This agreement, such as a Framework Convention on Global Health, would inform post-Millennium Development Goal global health commitments, be grounded in the right …

Canadian Food Law Update, Patricia L. Farnese

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Provided below is an overview of developments in Canadian food law and policy in 2010. This update primarily analyzes the regulatory and policy developments and litigation activities by the federal government. This focus reflects the significance of federal activities in the food policy realm.

Mobile Phones: Reshaping The Flow Of Urban-To-Rural Remittances, Bethany Brown

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Failure Of Conscience: How Pakistan’S Devastating Floods Compare To America’S Experience During Katrina, Oded Cedar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Cultivating Urban Forests Policies In Developing Countries, Janet A. Choi

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.