Lawrence Gostin

Georgetown University | GU · School of Law

For almost a century, the Supreme Court has not invalidated a law using the nondelegation doctrine. Recognizing that Congress seldom has expertise to address the ever-increasing complexities of society, the Court has long held that Congress can legislate broadly and seek help from federal agencies to fill up the details. Accordingly, courts defer t...

Background This study evaluated the effectiveness of Joint External Evaluation (JEE) scores with regard to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other infectious diseases performance in 96 countries. To propose a revised JEE tool, potential JEE indicators were also examined. Methods JEE data from 2016–2019 were linked with outcomes such as COVID...

The UN Summit of the Future from Sept 22 to Sept 23, 2024, is fast approaching, with a focus on achieving the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) by 2030, but also looking further into the future. The global health community would do well to consider what should follow the SDGs. To build on the Summit's broad remit, with its Pact for the Future c...

This JAMA Forum discusses recent rulings made by the US Supreme Court that limit the decision-making power of government agencies to safeguard public health, ensure safety, and protect the environment.

Following from sweeping law reforms across the global health landscape, there is a need to prepare the next generation to advance global health law to ensure justice for a healthier world. Educational programs across disciplines have increasingly incorporated the field of global health law, with new courses examining the law and policy frameworks t...

This JAMA Forum discusses the markedly different records and divergent campaign messages of the 2 major party presidential candidates on the issues of health care access, prescription drug prices, reproductive rights, migrant health, gun violence, health and safety agency powers, and pandemic preparedness.

The World Health Organization (WHO) was born as a normative agency and has looked to global health law to structure collective action to realize global health with justice. Framed by its constitutional authority to act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health, WHO has long been seen as the central actor in the development...

This Viewpoint discusses the history behind the right to physical and mental health in the US and the right to receive care during medical emergencies under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, and argues that abortion is health care.

Global health has long been characterized by injustice, with certain populations marginalized and made vulnerable by social, economic, and health disparities within and among countries. The pandemic only amplified inequalities. In response to it, the World Health Organization and the United Nations have embarked on transformative normative and fina...

This JAMA Forum discusses the International Health Regulations of the World Health Organization, political declarations of the United Nations, and a pandemic agreement proposed by the World Health Assembly and suggests 5 reforms that could improve pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases—connecting societies in shared vulnerability to common threats—and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health...

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases—connecting societies in shared vulnerability to common threats—and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health...

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases—connecting societies in shared vulnerability to common threats—and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health...

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases—connecting societies in shared vulnerability to common threats—and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing economic, social, and political determinants of health. Yet if globalization has presented challenges to disease prevention and health...

This Viewpoint discusses how poor indoor air quality can affect health and examines the Model State Indoor Air Quality Act, which provides science-based regulatory standards aimed at ensuring public indoor environments provide healthy air.

Globalization has unleashed the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases. connected societies in shared vulnerability to common threats, and revealed the limitations of domestic legislation in addressing underlying determinants of health. The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the cataclysmic threats of a globalizing world. Yet if globali...

This Viewpoint evaluates the legal claims and policy implications of historic drug price negotiations possible with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

This article highlights and evaluates the role of CEPI and its contribution to global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines through its established partnerships for vaccine development. The article adds to the understanding of how and when such partnerships can work for public health, especially under emergency citations.

This JAMA Forum discusses state-level abortion restrictions and protections, emergency care, abortion medication, and abortion counseling 1 year after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade .

Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, and recognising the sacrifice of health and care workers alongside discrimination, violence, poor working conditions and other violations of their rights, health and safety, in 2021 the World Health Assembly requested WHO to develop a global health and care worker compact, building on existing normative docu...

This Viewpoint examines the recent Supreme Court rulings on race neutrality, striking down affirmative action programs in higher education, which will affect efforts to eliminate health inequities in the US.

There is a broad consensus around equity’s importance. Even countries that hoarded supplies during the acute phase of COVID-19 seem to understand that the international community must find a means to ensure fairer allocation of medical resources when the next health crisis hits. But there has been little agreement about the concrete steps needed to...

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was inaugurated in 1948 to bring the world together to ensure the highest attainable standard of health for all. Establishing health governance under the United Nations (UN), WHO was seen as the preeminent leader in public health, promoting a healthier world following the destruction of World War II and ensuring...

Policy Points Global health institutions and instruments should be reformed to fully incorporate the principles of good health governance: the right to health, equity, inclusive participation, transparency, accountability, and global solidarity. New legal instruments, like International Health Regulations amendments and the pandemic treaty, should...

This Viewpoint looks back at the US Supreme Court’s 2021 and 2022 terms and forward to the 2023 term and beyond with a focus on decisions that affect health care, public health and safety, environmental policy, and social equity.

Societies generally have reacted to deadly epidemics by strengthening health systems, including laws. Under American federalism (the constitutional division of power between states and the federal government), individual states hold primary public health powers. State legislatures have historically granted health officials wide-ranging authority. A...

This Viewpoint summarizes several federal strategies to ensure pregnant persons’ access to abortion services after the recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization : expanding access to medication abortion, ensuring provision of emergency abortion services, proposing new conscience protections for clinicians, and prote...

This JAMA Forum discusses the harms of Title 42 on health, the lack of public health justification for its use in the US and how it violates international law, and the proposed reforms to promote public health instead of border control.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continued to mutate and spread in 2022 despite the introduction of safe, effective vaccines and medications. Vaccine hesitancy remains substantial, fueled in part by misinformation. Our third study of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine hesitancy among 23,000 respondents in 23 cou...

This is a pivotal moment in the global governance response to pandemic threats, with crucial global health law reforms being undertaken simultaneously in the coming years: the revision of the International Health Regulations, the implementation of the GHSA Legal Preparedness Action Package, and the negotiation of a new Pandemic Treaty. Rather than...

When the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, the failure of many states to live up to their human rights obligations should be a central narrative. The pandemic began with Wuhan officials in China suppressing information, silencing whistleblowers, and violating the freedom of expression and the right to health. Since then, COVID-19's effec...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic1,2. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 r...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2 . Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic1,2. Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19 r...

Despite notable scientific and medical advances, broader political, socioeconomic and behavioural factors continue to undercut the response to the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2 . Here we convened, as part of this Delphi study, a diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, non-governmental organization, government and other experts in COVID-19...

This Viewpoint discusses the ways in which the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which triggered abortion bans or restrictions in half of states, presents serious legal risks to clinicians and major ethical dilemmas.

Climate change poses a cataclysmic threat to public health and human rights [...]

This Viewpoint discusses the recent Supreme Court decision declaring a broad right to carry firearms in public and offers a public health strategy for firearms safety laws.

Background This study assessed the association between Joint External Evaluation (JEE) scores and Covid-19 and other infectious diseases performance in 96 countries. To propose a revised JEE tool, potential JEE indicators were also examined. Methods The JEE scores were extracted across 96 countries from 2016 to 2019. We used Covid-19, fatality rat...

This Viewpoint examines the ongoing monkeypox outbreak and the recent decision by the director-general of the World Health Organization to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

(Abstracted from JAMA 2021;326:1473–1474) A total of 13 states have enacted fetal heartbeat laws banning abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected. Despite enforcement of these laws being found unconstitutional by various courts, on September 1, 2021, the US Supreme Court allowed passage of a Texas fetal heartbeat law (SB8).

WHO has anchored the global health architecture since its founding in 1948, and it is impossible to imagine another institution filling the void if the international community were to let it atrophy. While also confronting and guiding the response to COVID-19, WHO is engaged in the most consequential reforms since its founding, including negotiatin...

Since the start of the Covid‐19 pandemic, societies have faced agonizing decisions about whether to close schools, shutter businesses, delay nonemergency health care, restrict travel, and authorize the use of emergency Covid‐19 countermeasures under limited scientific understanding. When both action and inaction can result in significant harm and i...

Recognizing marked limitations of global health law in the COVID-19 pandemic, a rising number of states in the World Health Assembly have proposed the development of a new pandemic treaty. This prospective treaty has the potential to clarify state obligations for pandemic preparedness and response and strengthen World Health Organization authoritie...

Most countries have implemented restrictions on mobility to prevent the spread of Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), entailing considerable societal costs but, at least initially, based on limited evidence of effectiveness. We asked whether mobility restrictions were associated with changes in the occurrence of COVID-19 in 34 OECD countries plus Si...

Many vaccine rationing guidelines urge planners to recognize, and ideally reduce, inequities. In the United States, allocation frameworks are determined by each of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 64 jurisdictions (50 states, the District of Columbia, five cities and eight territories). In this study, we analyzed vaccine allocation...

As shown by COVID-19, infectious diseases with a pandemic potential present a grave threat to health and wellbeing. Although the International Health Regulations provide a framework of binding legal obligations for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, many countries do not comply with these regulations. There is a need for a renewed fra...

Background The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR (2005)) require States Parties to establish National Focal Points (NFPs) responsible for notifying the World Health Organization (WHO) of potential events that might constitute public health emergencies of international concern (PHEICs), such as outbreaks of novel infectious diseases. Given...

Background: The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR (2005)) require States Parties to establish National Focal Points (NFPs) responsible for notifying the World Health Organization (WHO) of potential events that might constitute public health emergencies of international concern (PHEICs), such as outbreaks of novel infectious diseases. Given...

Several coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are currently in human trials. In June 2020, we surveyed 13,426 people in 19 countries to determine potential acceptance rates and factors influencing acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of these, 71.5% of participants reported that they would be very or somewhat likely to take a COVID-19 vaccine,...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-01226-0

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sought to bring the world together to respond to a shared threat. This column seeks to examine the central importance of WHO in developing and implementing global health law. Recognizing that global health law requires global governance, the column begins by situating WHO’s role at the forefront of global hea...

Joseph R. Biden was elected President of the United States during a period of compound crises for global health and security: the worst pandemic in a century, as well as steep reverses in progress toward reducing poverty, hunger, and disease. The United States has been in full retreat from global health leadership, fraying relationships with allies...

The International Health Regulations (ihr), of which the World Health Organization is custodian, govern how countries collectively promote global health security, including prevention, detection, and response to global health emergencies such as the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. Countries are permitted to exercise their sovereignty in taking additiona...

The International Health Regulations ( ihr ), of which the World Health Organization is custodian, govern how countries collectively promote global health security, including prevention, detection, and response to potential global health emergencies such as the ongoing covid -19 pandemic. While Article 44 of this binding legal instrument requires c...

Objectives To determine the impact of restrictions on mobility on reducing transmission of COVID-19. Design Daily incidence rates lagged by 14 days were regressed on mobility changes using LOESS regression and logit regression between the day of the 100th case in each country to August 31, 2020. Setting 34 OECD countries plus Singapore and Taiwan...