| Globalization has brought about free exchange of capital, merchandise and personnel, and contributed to the growth of global economy so that it has laid a good foundation for the improvement of human health conditions. However, the negative influences of globalization on human health deserve more attention. Under the condition of globalization, public health problems are easy to go beyond the borders of nation states and become global public health problems. As a result, more and more attention has been paid to how members of the international community cooperate effectively to deal with the unpredictable global public health crises.This article is based on International Law and global health governance theories. Global health governance requires that various agencies of different levels, such as nation states, international governmental organizations, international non-governmental organizations, see protecting human health right as one of their common goals, cooperate and coordinate well with each other, and work out and implement canons, rules, plans and policies to solve global public health problems. Therefore, I focus my study on how relevant international laws should reform to create an institutional protection for global health governance. Nation states should fulfill their obligation concerning health right as stipulated by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights so as to give full scope to their crucial role in global health governance. And international governmental organizations should, in the context of emphasizing human right and sustainable development, explain their function, extend the power of their organizations, and make good use of their mechanisms so as to realize the goal of global public health. A long term, stable and systematic cooperation should be established among various organizations and mechanisms. So, a cooperative and coordinative network can be formed, which allow international governmental organizations to take part in global health governance. International Law should recognize subject position and law personality of international non-governmental organizations and raise their participation ability so as to fully realize their capacity in global health governance.My dissertation is divided into three parts, namely introduction, the main body and conclusion. There are five chapters in the main body. Chapter one "Global health issue and global public health cooperation" traces the origin of public health and uses a historical perspective to see the past and present situation of international public health cooperation. In order to give this dissertation a theoretical framework, I apply theories of international relations, such as global public goods, global governance, and international regime, to the study of global public health. By doing so, I try to elaborate the meaning and necessity of global health governance, the role of International Law in it and the challenges the International Law faces in fulfilling that role.Chapter two "World Health Organization and its international legislation" studies the origin and development of World Health Organization (WHO), which leads global health governance. I also try to analyze the function, the structure and the recent functional transformation of the organization by studying both WHO constitution and WHO's participation in international relation. This chapter stresses the study of the international legislation of WHO, which mainly deals with the establishment and amendment of International Health Regulations and the establishment of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.Chapter three "World Trade Organization and global public health cooperation" looks at the relationship between health and free trade and the ways to resolve the conflicts between them. By doing so, I analyze law and policy documents, such as TRIPs, Doha Declaration, and GATS. I argue that when there is a common goal between international trade and public health, with the help of other international organizations, WTO can use its decision- making mechanism and dispute settlement mechanism to resolve the problems between free trade and public health.Chapter four reveals that the main subjects of global governance in health realm are nation states. Only when nation states fulfill their international obligations, strengthen their basic health facilities, and provide equal basic medical care for their citizens, can the goals of global health be realized. This chapter starts from the health right, which is part of international human right law, so as to look at the role of International Law in driving national states to enhance the construction of domestic health. I particularly pay attention to the contributions of international human right mechanism, Millennium Development Goal of the United Nations and World Bank in realizing health right.Chapter five explores the role of international non-governmental organization. With the deepening of globalization, international non-governmental organizations play an important role in global public health cooperation. This chapter looks at the relationship between WHO and non-governmental organizations. It argues that within the existing framework of International Law, international non-governmental organizations cannot effectively participate in the decision making process of global health cooperation. Therefore, I think that International Law ought to grant non-governmental organizations subject position and law personality, and enhance their participation capabilities. Public-private partnership is one of the ways that international non-governmental organizations and international governmental organizations cooperate in global public health affairs, which enables non-governmental organizations to play a more important role in global health governance. The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria is one of the important agents among this category. Hence I study its structure and mode of operation in this chapter too.I use the last sections of chapter two to five to explore the law and practice in China. The purpose is enhancing China's role in the legislative process of global public health cooperation. |
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