Global Health Law & Policy

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, connected societies through vulnerability to common threats, and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health promotion, with the COVID-19 pandemic making clear the governance challenges ahead, global health law offers the promise of bridging national boundaries to alleviate global inequities. The academic field of global health law analyzes the law and policy frameworks that apply to the new public health threats, non-state actors, and regulatory instruments that structure global health. Arising out of international health law--which narrowly focuses on relationships among states--the field of global health law reflects the changing institutional architecture, norms, and diplomacy necessary to respond to the health threats of the twenty-first