SHIFTING NORMS IN INTERNATIONAL HEALTH LAW

At the 98th annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, a panel was convened at 9:00 A.M., Thursday, April 1, by its chair, Stephen Marks, professor at Harvard School of Public Health. Panelists were: 1. Scott Barrett of Johns Hopkins University, 2. Gian Luca Burci of the World Health Organization, 3. Katherine Gorove of the United States Department of State, and 4. Allyn Taylor of the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University. Barrett said that though global environmental problems are almost always addressed by means of a treaty, global health problems rarely are. The concept of human security is largely based on a reconsideration of the meaning of international security in the light of the end of the Cold War and of increasing globalization, Luca Burci said. Gorove notes that while it is generally agreed that there is a linkage between health and human rights is, what that linkage is specifically is less well understood. Taylor provides an overview of some of the implications of global change for the field of international health law and for the state and nonstate actors involved in global health governance.