[EQ] Global Health Law: Health in a Global Community

Global Health Law: Health in a Global Community

Lawrence O. Gostin, Georgetown University Law Center, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law Scholarship. Paper 15 - September 22, 2008 

in Public Health Law Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund: Revised & Expanded 2d ed. 2008).  

 

Available online PDF [56p.] at:   http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=georgetown/ois

 

“…..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, i.e., extending beyond sovereign nations. There is no other way to truly ensure the public’s health than through cooperation and global governance.

 

This chapter searches for answers as to why health hazards seem to change form and migrate everywhere on the earth; why extant global governance systems are frequently ineffective; and how international law can be used as a tool for improving the health of the world’s population, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. This requires an understanding of the global dimensions of disease and man’s role in harming the planet; the meaning and sources of international law; and modern international regimes of high relevance to health, including infectious diseases, tobacco, trade, and human rights….”

 

Website: http://lsr.nellco.org/georgetown/ois/papers/15/

 

Public Health Law
Power, Duty, Restraint - Revised and Expanded Second Edition 2008
Lawrence O. Gostin  - California/Milbank Books on Health

Contents

Foreword by Daniel M. Fox, Samuel L. Milbank, and Carmen Hooker Odom
Preface to the Second Edition

PART ONE: CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF PUBLIC HEALTH LAW
PART TWO: LAW AND THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH
PART THREE: PUBLIC HEALTH AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN CONFLICT
PART FOUR: THE FUTURE OF THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH
Notes
Selected Bibliography

Chapter one: A Theory and Definition of Public Health Law is available online PDF [40P.] at:
http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=georgetown/ois

 

‘……[Public health law] should not be confused with medical jurisprudence, which is concerned only in the legal aspects of the application of medical and surgical knowledge to individuals. . . . [P]ublic health is not a branch of medicine, but a science in itself, to which, however, preventive medicine is an important contributor. Public health law is that branch of jurisprudence which treats of the application of common and statutory law to the principles of hygiene and sanitary science.

James A. Tobey (1926)…”

 

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