There is growing awareness among international lawyers as well as health scholars and policy-makers about the influence of public health considerations on the design and implementation of multiple international legal regimes, from human rights to investment law and from international technical standards to environmental law.  Yet talk of “global health law” as a distinct field of international law is contradicted by extreme fragmentation and conflicts or overlaps between legal regimes.  There is a need for a holistic reflection both on the operation of specific international legal regimes as well as on general principles and concepts underlying the role of health in international law.

In this panel discussion, which also coincides with the publication of the first systematic overview of the role of health as a normative value in international law, four academic experts and contributors to the book will present their insights on their respective fields, their mutual interaction and reflect on the future research agenda for this complex and burgeoning field of scholarship.