Event Title

Morning Panel: Changing Attitudes: A Review of Evolving State Practice in Global Health Emergencies

Start Date

27-3-2015 10:30 AM

End Date

27-3-2015 1:00 PM

Description

The International Community has not always been concerned with outbreaks of communicable diseases within States. Disease was a national burden to be addressed or contained by individual States in keeping with the doctrine of territorial integrity and equality of States. However, at the end of World War II it became apparent that there was need for a global approach to the eradication of diseases. Even so, at that time, global response to public health emergencies was not necessarily developed. It was not until the outbreak of the Avian Flu and subsequently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that the international community began to take the issue of globalized efforts to the eradication of communicable diseases seriously.

These outbreaks of communicable diseases and the need for globalized efforts to combat them necessitated the renegotiation of International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and other ancillary Regulations and Recommendations for member States of the WHO. As a result, a pattern of response and adaptation began to emerge in the international community.

This paper examines what the disposition of the international community has been towards the outbreak of contagious diseases in different regions of the World prior to the IHR. It will trace the emergence of global legal governance of communicable diseases and the compliance or otherwise of members of the international community to extant global legal governance on public health. The paper will highlight the shifts that have been made by the international community in their attitudes to healthcare emergencies and the changes made in response to particular communicable disease outbreaks. The paper proposes recommendations on what the trend may very well be in future situations in particular regions of the world.

Comments

Prince-Oparaku Uzoma is a Research Fellow and Faculty member of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Justice Nigeria (NIALS), with research interest in Health Law and Policy, Intellectual Property, Criminal Justice and criminology. Mrs. Prince-Oparaku Uzoma as a faculty member of Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has contributed to a number of peer reviewed journals, served as a Rapporteur in Round Tables, has been involved in field research and desk reviews, law review, annotation of laws and teaching postgraduate students alongside eminent professors. Mrs. Prince-Oparaku Uzoma holds an LL.B (J.D equivalent) from the University of Calabar, Calabar Cross River State Nigeria, LLM from the University of Lagos, Lagos Nigeria, a certificate on Bioethics from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg South Africa, and is currently an SJD Candidate of the Golden Gate University School of Law, San Francisco, California. Mrs Prince-Oparaku Uzoma is a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and a bioethicist.

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Mar 27th, 10:30 AM Mar 27th, 1:00 PM

Morning Panel: Changing Attitudes: A Review of Evolving State Practice in Global Health Emergencies

The International Community has not always been concerned with outbreaks of communicable diseases within States. Disease was a national burden to be addressed or contained by individual States in keeping with the doctrine of territorial integrity and equality of States. However, at the end of World War II it became apparent that there was need for a global approach to the eradication of diseases. Even so, at that time, global response to public health emergencies was not necessarily developed. It was not until the outbreak of the Avian Flu and subsequently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that the international community began to take the issue of globalized efforts to the eradication of communicable diseases seriously.

These outbreaks of communicable diseases and the need for globalized efforts to combat them necessitated the renegotiation of International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and other ancillary Regulations and Recommendations for member States of the WHO. As a result, a pattern of response and adaptation began to emerge in the international community.

This paper examines what the disposition of the international community has been towards the outbreak of contagious diseases in different regions of the World prior to the IHR. It will trace the emergence of global legal governance of communicable diseases and the compliance or otherwise of members of the international community to extant global legal governance on public health. The paper will highlight the shifts that have been made by the international community in their attitudes to healthcare emergencies and the changes made in response to particular communicable disease outbreaks. The paper proposes recommendations on what the trend may very well be in future situations in particular regions of the world.