The World Health Organization in Global Health Law

Authors

Benjamin Mason Meier, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillFollow
Allyn Taylor, School of Law, University of Washington
Mark Eccleston-Turner, School of Law, Keele University
Roojin Habibi, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Sharifah Sekalala, School of Law, Warwick University
Lawrence O. Gostin, Georgetown University - Law Center - O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

DOI

10.1177/1073110520979392

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sought to bring the world together to respond to a shared threat. This column seeks to examine the central importance of WHO in developing and implementing global health law. Recognizing that global health law requires global governance, the column begins by situating WHO’s role at the forefront of global health governance. WHO’s leadership in global governance for health is supported by an expansive mandate to serve as a forum for the codification of international law, which WHO has exercised sporadically through the evolving development of the International Health Regulations (IHR). Yet, where the IHR have proven incommensurate to the COVID-19 challenge, WHO now finds itself at a crossroads, with this column considering a range of reforms that may be proposed in the years to come.

Publication Citation

The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Vol. 48, Issue 4, Pp. 796-799.

Scholarly Commons Citation

Meier, Benjamin Mason; Taylor, Allyn; Eccleston-Turner, Mark; Habibi, Roojin; Sekalala, Sharifah; and Gostin, Lawrence O., "The World Health Organization in Global Health Law" (2020). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 2344.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2344