736B: Global Public Health Law

Today’s major public health challenges are all global in character.  These include the surveillance, containment and treatment of epidemic diseases; management of planetary environmental conditions (including climate change and its attendant health effects and relation to chronic illnesses); control of trade in dangerous products and disease vectors (such as tobacco); and intellectual property rights attendant with disease treatments.  This course will offer public health and law students a chance to work in a collaborative setting, by (1) introducing the basic sources, institutions and processes of international law as they bear on public health practice; (2) examining key international law materials, doctrines and topics (including human rights and international humanitarian law; international environmental law; trade and global health regimes) through a set of innovative case-studies and simulations; and (3) discussing the policy and international relations aspects of global health problems.