News
European Law Student's Association (ELSA) magazine
WHO staff contribute to the magazine of the European Law Student's Association with an article about the role of health law in the work of the WHO.
Consultation on the Development of a Public Health Law Manual, Cairo, 2010
From 26-28 April 2010, an International Expert Consultation on Public Health Law was convened jointly with the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. The consultation reviewed an outline for the proposed manual on health law and identified best practice examples.
Consultation on Public Health Law, Rome, 2009
From 26-28 April 2009, the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) hosted a consultation on public health law at IDLO headquarters in Rome, Italy. The consultation was co-sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and by the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Twenty-two experts in public health law attended the consultation, in their personal capacities. The participants came from a wide range of countries and development agencies.
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The objectives of the consultation were to:
- Propose a conceptual framework for future collaboration on public health law;
- Identify opportunities for using law to improve health, particularly within developing countries, through action within the international legal arena, and within national legal frameworks;
- Make recommendations to WHO about its role in the area of health law, in light of WHO’s comparative advantage, and to consider proposed objectives for work on public health law at, or sponsored by, WHO;
- Identify opportunities to strengthen and build networks and capacity to promote health through law; and
- Propose a process for future collaboration with emphasis on capacity building and networking to benefit developing countries in the area of public health law.
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The report of the meeting sets out a framework for understanding national health law and international health law, the relationships between them, and the roles of law in health development. Secondly, it draws together key themes from the working groups, which sought to identify priority public health issues and areas where law could have an impact. Following on, it briefly clarifies the role that WHO could play in future partnerships for the development of public health law. Fourthly, it then summarises the consensus that participants reached during the course of the consultation on priorities for future partnerships and work over the next 12 months.
Press release on consultation in Rome
WHO, O'Neill Institute and IDLO Call on Governments to Strengthen Public Health Laws. At a two-day meeting in Rome convened by the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), 22 legal experts from around the world endorsed an initiative to build the capacity of governments to deal with infectious and non-communicable diseases that threaten the health, safety and economic viability of people and their countries.