Introductory description

Six years since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed underlying limitations in the existing global health law frameworks, the landscape of global health governance has seen seismic changes: from legislative developments such as amendments to the International Health Regulations and a new Pandemic Agreement, to mounting threats to multilateralism, a deepening funding crisis in global health, and emerging challenges posed by artificial intelligence and digital technologies with far-reaching implications for health outcomes.

In these uncertain times, at a moment when global health has been described by some as facing an existential crisis, there is renewed urgency for the advancement and critical interrogation of global health law and policy. In an interconnected world where health challenges are not limited by national borders, no country can respond effectively alone. This reality necessitates the development and strengthening of global health law.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Introductory lecture: What is Global Health Law
Week 2: Actors, institutions, and fragmentation in global health law
Week 3: Global health governance and human rights
Week 4: Infectious Disease control and global health security
Week 5: Non-communicable diseases
Week 6: Health and trade law
Week 7: Environmental health
Week 8: Digital Health
Week 9: Wrap-up discussion and advice on final assessment

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Develop a critical understanding of the historical, postcolonial and racial context within which global health law is constructed.
• Explain the sources, principles, institutions, and actors of global health law.
• Apply selected norms and legal instruments in global health law to major contemporary health challenges studied during the class, notably communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, environmental health, digital health, and the interface with international trade law.
• Critically evaluate both the normative strengths and limitations of human rights framings in global health law from decolonial and Third World perspectives.
• Formulate well-reasoned legal and policy arguments on whether and how global health law structures, reproduces, or challenges global inequities.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Subject specific skills

1. Mapping the sources, institutions, and actors of global health law
2. Critically assessing fragmentation and regime complexity in global health law
3. Applying international human rights frameworks to global health governance challenges
4. Critically engaging with the evolution of legal regimes on control of infectious diseases, including the International Health Regulations and the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
5. Analysing governance challenges relating to non-communicable diseases, and interpreting treaty obligations under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
6. Critically evaluating the public health dimensions of the TRIPS Agreement
7. Assessing environmental determinants of health and critically apply the One Health approach.
8. Critically engaging with the health equity implications of prevailing divides in digital health technologies.

Transferable skills

1. Develop advanced critical analytical skills, enabling them to evaluate complex legal and policy frameworks across intersecting regimes (health, trade, human rights, environment, and technology).
2. Construct clear, persuasive, and well-structured legal and policy arguments.
3. Develop a critical understanding of the historical, postcolonial and racial context within which international legal instruments are negotiated.
4. Engage effectively in negotiation and stakeholder-based problem solving, through simulation exercises, collaborative policy design, and structured debates during the seminars.