Defining Global Health Law

Global health law has become an established field of education, practice, and research, with its importance as each of these being beyond doubt. At the same time, however, its definition remains elusive, and subject to peculiar contest. Discourses on what it is, or is about, result in the advancing of challenging contrasts, paradoxes, contradictions, and concessions. Against that background, this paper addresses global health law’s ‘coherence anxiety’. It is argued that particular definitional problems emerge where it is assumed or given that global health law is somehow a sub-field or sub-discipline of international law; that its distinction comes in its concerning ‘global law’ and ‘health’, rather than ‘global health’ and ‘law’. It is, of course, the case that the practical, institutional, and governance ‘space’ of global health inevitably presents a key role for public international law and international health law. However, on examination, it is less than obvious that international law should be seen as the pivotal concern, less still defining, of the field. Insofar as an established reference point might provide a basis, frame, or model for global health law, the field of public health law, rather than the discipline of international law, offers the more suited area.