Tutorial 9 - Electronic Governance - Health

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Title

Electronic Governance and Health: Governance Approaches to the Globalization of Infectious Diseases and Epidemics

Date/Time

Tuesday 02 December 2008, 15:20 - 16:40

Organizers

Description

We meet as we fight to defeat SARS, the first new epidemic of the twenty-first century. …Globalization of disease and threats to health mean globalization of the fight against them.…The events of the last few weeks also prompt us to look closely at the instruments of national and international law. Are they keeping up with our rapidly changing world? – Gro-Harlem Brundtland

Today, in an interconnected world, bacteria and viruses travel almost as fast as e-mail and financial flows. Globalization has connected Bujumbura to Bombay and Bangkok to Boston. There are no health sanctuaries. No impregnable walls exist between a world that is healthy, well-fed, and well-off and another that is sick, malnourished, and impoverished. Globalization has shrunk distances, broken down old barriers, and linked people. Problems halfway around the world become everyone’s problem – Gro Harlem Brundtland

The outbreak (first in China), and the rapid global spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, as Brundtland observed above, challenged the global regulatory and governance structures - “the instruments of national and international law” - as they interact with microbial forces in a dynamic and globalizing world. SARS presented an opportunity for international organizations, especially the World Health Organization (WHO), to re-examine traditional governance approaches to the globalized challenges posed by infectious diseases and epidemics in an inter-dependent world. The globalized nature of emerging and re-emerging disease pathogens disrespects the geo-political boundaries of nation-sates. As observed by Grein et al,
Globalization presents new challenges and opportunities in combating diseases likely to cause epidemics. As a result of increased international travel and trade, local events acquire international importance. At the same time, the rapid global expansion of telecommunications and broadened access to news media and the Internet have changed the way society treats information. Reports of disease outbreaks are more widely disseminated and more easily accessible than ever before…

This presentation explores the mandate of the WHO as the coordinating authority for international health work. It highlights WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) for “epidemic intelligence” in monitoring disease outspreads (of international/global concern) in the territories of its 193 Member-States using the Internet-based tool “Global Public Health Intelligence Network” (GPHIN), and the regulatory framework – International Health Regulations (IHR).

Biography

Obijiofor Aginam holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is on leave of absence from his tenured position as Professor of Law, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada where he has taught and researched global policy issues that cut across international law, globalization, global health governance, human rights, South-North relations, and Third World Approaches to International Law. He is presently Academic Programme Officer & Director of Studies in the Peace and Governance Programme, United Nations University headquarters, Tokyo, Japan where he oversees research on policy and institutional frameworks on pressing global issues within the mandate of the United Nations. He has worked as Legal Officer at the World Health Organization headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. He has held numerous fellowships including Global Security and Cooperation Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) of New York. Dr. Aginam has been a visiting professor at the University for Peace, Costa Rica, International University of Peoples’ Institutions for Peace, Rovereto, Italy, and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the author Global Health Governance: International Law and Public Health in a Divided World (University of Toronto Press, 2005); co-editor of Humanizing Our Global Order (University of Toronto Press, 2003); and co-author of Legal Review of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) From a Public Health Perspective (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2006). He is currently writing a book on HIV/AIDS and Human Security in Africa focusing on Nigeria and South Africa funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.