Benjamin Mason Meier, Alexandra Finch, Roojin Habibi
{"title":"Global Health Law: Between Hard and Soft Law.","authors":"Benjamin Mason Meier, Alexandra Finch, Roojin Habibi","doi":"10.1017/jme.2025.21","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The field of global health law encompasses both \"hard\" law treaties and \"soft\" law policies that shape global health norms. Transitioning from \"international health law\" to \"global health law and policy,\" global health policymakers have increasingly looked to soft law instruments to address public health needs in a rapidly globalizing world - within the World Health Organization and across global health governance. Yet, as policymakers have expanded the landscape of soft law policy instruments to advance global health across state and non-state actors, the COVID-19 response revealed the limitations of this soft law approach to global health threats, with states now seeking hard law reforms to strengthen global health governance. As hard and soft law can provide complementary approaches to preventing disease and promoting health, future research must conceptualize how these normative frameworks interact in advancing global health.</p>","PeriodicalId":50165,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics","volume":" ","pages":"11-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12174801/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jme.2025.21","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/4/14 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The field of global health law encompasses both "hard" law treaties and "soft" law policies that shape global health norms. Transitioning from "international health law" to "global health law and policy," global health policymakers have increasingly looked to soft law instruments to address public health needs in a rapidly globalizing world - within the World Health Organization and across global health governance. Yet, as policymakers have expanded the landscape of soft law policy instruments to advance global health across state and non-state actors, the COVID-19 response revealed the limitations of this soft law approach to global health threats, with states now seeking hard law reforms to strengthen global health governance. As hard and soft law can provide complementary approaches to preventing disease and promoting health, future research must conceptualize how these normative frameworks interact in advancing global health.
期刊介绍:
Material published in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (JLME) contributes to the educational mission of The American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, covering public health, health disparities, patient safety and quality of care, and biomedical science and research. It provides articles on such timely topics as health care quality and access, managed care, pain relief, genetics, child/maternal health, reproductive health, informed consent, assisted dying, ethics committees, HIV/AIDS, and public health. Symposium issues review significant policy developments, health law court decisions, and books.