The last two decades have brought revolutionary changes in global health, driven by popular concern over AIDS, novel influenzas, and maternal mortality. Given the rapid globalization that is a defining feature of today's world, the need for a robust system of global health law has never been...

Justice is so central to the mission of public health that it has been described as the field's core value. Our account of justice stresses the fair disbursement of common advantages and sharing of common burdens. It captures the twin moral impulses that animate public health: to advance human...

In May 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits (PIP Framework). The PIP Framework’s adoption ended years of difficult negotiations, which began after Indonesia...

Director-General Margaret Chan recently called the WHO overextended and unable to respond with speed and agility to today’s global health challenges. Given the importance of global health cooperation, few would dispute that a stronger, more effective WHO would benefit all. In this commentary,...

Recent tobacco control regulation in North America and Western Europe has had a salutary effect, even if smoking remains a pressing public health hazard. But in the 21st century, the tobacco industry has quietly moved its locus of activity to lucrative, emerging markets: the vast populations in...

A global health treaty, a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) – grounded in the right to health, with the central goal of reducing immense domestic and global health inequities – could serve as a robust global governance instrument to underpin the United Nations post-2015 Millennium...

Americans are largely apathetic about the risks of Zika virus and Congress cannot agree on preparedness funding. Strategies to counter the spread of Zika by the World Health Organisation (WHO) grossly underestimate the disease’s impact. WHO and member countries lack sufficient resources to...

The world’s failed response to COVID-19 — characterized by weak health systems, a distrust in science, and vastly inequitable access to global public health goods — provides a historic opportunity to reform the global health architecture, including its legal norms, processes, and...

There is a broad consensus around equity’s importance. Even countries that hoarded supplies during the acute phase of COVID-19 seem to understand that the international community must find a means to ensure fairer allocation of medical resources when the next health crisis hits. But there has...

The U.S. Global Health Initiative (GHI) represents the Obama administration’s new strategy for international development assistance in health. With a pledge of $63 billion over six years, GHI aims to fund PEPFAR and a set of broader global health issues (e.g., maternal and child health,...