HHR contributor Juliet Sorensen reviews Lawrence O. Gostin’s Global Health Law in today’s Times Higher Education. Gostin is on the steering committee for the recently launched Framework Convention on Global Health, and is an HHR board member. In her review, Sorensen writes that Gostin “exhorts individual nations and the international community to apply meaningful governance standards to global health even as the right to health continues to evolve and gain acceptance.” She notes that social engagement is a key component in overcoming public health challenges:
The history of public health successes – including the establishment of the WHO, the eradication of smallpox and globalised information sharing about disease – demonstrates that challenges to public health are not overcome by science alone. Rather, social mobilisation through law and activism holds governments accountable to the public health.
Global Health Law is published by Harvard University Press.