Description
This module aims to raise understanding of the processes underlying the development of a new regime of Global Health Law. In particular, it aims to critically analyse the enabling or hindering role of law in the achievement of key health objectives in substantive areas of global health, such as epidemics, HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases (obesity, mental health), tobacco control, reproductive health, determinants of health (access to food, water, education), innovation in healthcare, etc. Special focus on the issues of enforceability and accountability of health rights at the global and national level with particular attention to the right to health. The module will focus on selected substantive areas of global health to raise awareness of the main contemporary political, ethical, social, and economic challenges faced in the field of global health law. These include trans-border flow of patients, healthcare professional, and data. They also stem from the institutional and normative fragmentation of global health law, closely linked to the decline of the WHO leadership accompanied by a simultaneous proliferation of new actors in international health policy, including governmental and non-governmental organisations (UNAIDS, WTO, UNESCO, Red Cross, The Global Fund), financial institutions (eg World Bank, IMF), charities (e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AMF), professional networks (eg WMA, MSF), and private companies (pharma). Finally, the discussion of substantive areas of global health will be utilised to critically analyse the role of law (eg the right to development, extra-territorial state obligations) in addressing the issue of global justice.
