AGENDA: Fracking, Water Quality and Public Health: Examining Current Laws and Regulations

Improved technology developments in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, have resulted in an oil and gas production boom nationwide. Fracking involves pumping pressurized water, sand, and chemicals down wells to crack bedrock, freeing petroleum and natural gas. Wastewater discharges, hydraulic fracturing fluid releases, and other accidental spills pose potential water quality risks, sparking concern for public health. This webinar will examine the laws and regulations governing water quality issues related to fracking, recent state court decisions affecting regulations, and implications for public health

AGENDA: Fracking, Water Quality and Public Health: Examining Current Laws and Regulations

Improved technology developments in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, have resulted in an oil and gas production boom nationwide. Fracking involves pumping pressurized water, sand, and chemicals down wells to crack bedrock, freeing petroleum and natural gas. Wastewater discharges, hydraulic fracturing fluid releases, and other accidental spills pose potential water quality risks, sparking concern for public health. This webinar will examine the laws and regulations governing water quality issues related to fracking, recent state court decisions affecting regulations, and implications for public health

Public-Private Health Law: Multiple Directions in Public Health

No public law is more public than public health law. Its defining subject is the use of state power to control and prevent death and disease. Its primary institutions are a cluster of state actors, the governmental agencies that comprise the American public health system.,, The system grew out of the eighteenth century boards of health that produced the beginnings of administrative law. Public health law is grounded on statutory provisions that authorize various forms of state action and on judicial decisions that resolve constitutional challenges to those actions

Public Health Law: A Renaissance

Public health seeks to assure the conditions for people to be healthy. Public health can be distinguished from health care in several critical respects. Public health focuses on: (1) the health and safety of populations rather than the health of individual patients; (2) prevention of injury and disease rather than treatment and care; (3) relationships between the government and the community rather than the physician and patient; and (4) population based services grounded on the scientific methodologies of public health (e.g., biostatistics and epidemiology) rather than personal medical services. These critical features - populations, prevention, government and communities, and epidemiological services - are the hallmarks of public health

Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law

Effective laws and an enabling legal environment are essential to a healthy society. Most public health challenges – from infectious and non-communicable diseases to injuries, from mental illness to universal health coverage – have a legal component. At global, national and local levels, law is a powerful tool for advancing the right to health. This tool is, however, often underutilized. This report aims to raise awareness about the role that public health laws can play in advancing the right to health and in creating the conditions for all people to live healthy lives. The report provides guidance about issues and requirements to be addressed during the process of developing or reforming public health laws, with case studies drawn from countries around the world to illustrate effective practices and critical features of effective public health legislation. Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law is the result of a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO), the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Washington D.C., USA, and Sydney Law School, University of Sydney. The Project Directors were: Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, Linda D. and Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law and University Professor, Georgetown University; Faculty Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University; Mr David Patterson, Senior Legal Expert – Health; Department of Research & Learning, International Development Law Organization; Professor Roger Magnusson, Professor of Health Law & Governance, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney; Mr Oscar Cabrera, Executive Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Ms Helena Nygren-Krug (2011–2013), Senior Advisor, Human Rights & Law, UNAIDS. The content and structure of the report reflect the consensus reached at the second of two international consultations in public health law that preceded the preparation of the report, hosted by WHO and IDLO in Cairo, Egypt, 26-28 April 2010. Part 1 introduces the human right to health and its role in guiding and evaluating law reform efforts, including efforts to achieve the goal of universal health coverage. Part 2 discusses the process of public health law reform. The law reform process refers to the practical steps involved in advancing the political goal of law reform, and the kinds of issues and obstacles that may be encountered along the way. Part 2 identifies some of the actors who may initiate or lead the public health law reform process, discusses principles of good governance during that process, and ways of building a consensus around the need for public health law reform. Part 3 turns from the process of reforming public health laws to the substance or content of those laws. It identifies a number of core areas of public health practice where regulation is essential in order to ensure that governments (at different levels) discharge their basic public health functions. Traditionally, these core areas of public health practice have included: the provision of clean water and sanitation, monitoring and surveillance of public health threats, the management of communicable diseases, and emergency powers. Building on these core public health functions, Part 3 goes on to consider a range of other public health priorities where law has a critical role to play. These priorities include tobacco control, access to essential medicines, the migration of health care workers, nutrition, maternal, reproductive and child health, and the role of law in advancing universal access to quality health services for all members of the population. The report includes many examples that illustrate the ways in which different countries have used law to protect the health of their populations in ways that are consistent with their human rights obligations. Countries vary widely in terms of their constitutional structure, size, history and political culture. For these reasons, the examples given are not intended to be prescriptive, but to provide useful comparisons for countries involved in the process of legislative review

Rape Beyond Crime

Public health experts agree that sexual violence constitutes a significant public health issue. Yet criminal law dominates rape law almost completely, with public health law playing at best a small supporting role. Recent civil law developments, such as university disciplinary proceedings, similarly fixate on how best to find and penalize perpetrators. As a result, rape law continues to spin its wheels in the same arguments and obstacles. This Article argues that, without broader cultural changes, criminal law faces a double bind: rape laws will either be ineffective or neglect the importance of individual culpability. Public health law provides more promising terrain for rape prevention because it is a strong legal framework that can engage the complex causes of rape, including the social norms that promote sexual aggression. While criminal law can only punish bad behavior, public health interventions can use the more effective prevention strategy of promoting positive behaviors and relationships. They can also address the myriad sexual behaviors and social determinants that increase the risk of rape but are outside the scope of criminal law. Perhaps most importantly, public health law relies on evidence-based interventions and the expertise of public health authorities to ensure that laws and policies are effective. Transforming rape law in this way provides a framework for legal feminism to undertake the unmet challenge of “theorizing yes,” that is, moving beyond how to protect women’s right to refuse sex and toward promoting and exploring positive models of sex. Criminal law is simply incapable of meeting this challenge because it concerns only what sex should not be. A public health framework can give the law a richer role in addressing the full spectrum of sexual attitudes and behaviors

Foreword: Public Health & the Law—A Symposium Dedicated to Professor William J. Curran

This essay serves as the foreword to Public Health & the Law, a symposium dedicated to Professor William J. Curran held in 1987. During his career, Professor Curran chaired the Harvard School of Public Health Committee on Human Research; he directed the Program in Law and Public Health; and he was co-director of the Harvard Interfaculty Program in Medical Ethics from 1973 to 1980. He was also an advisor to the World Health Organization and spent two sabbatical periods in Europe with WHO organizations. He advised and lectured in countries throughout the world. At Harvard Law School and at the Harvard School of Public Health, Professor Curran educated three generations of lawyers who have gone on to hold varied positions of influence in the field of health law--from academia to private practice, from health care delivery and management to government leadership. His textbooks have been a bedrock of learning for students in schools of law, medicine and public health. He commands the respect of colleagues for his rigor and fairness in safeguarding the rights and dignity of human subjects. The American Society of Law and Medicine honored him, together with Professor Jay Katz of the Yale Law School, as the best health law teacher in the nation. The honor bestowed on Professor Curran is especially important because he has been chosen by other health law professors. Professor Curran\u27s work has had a striking influence on such areas as death and dying, risk management, mental health and public health. His concern is not with reducing medical malpractice claims alone, but with reducing risk for patients as well

The Future of Public Health Law

Developments in medicine and constitutional law dictate modification of public health legislation in the United States. Traditionally overlooked by legislators, present public health laws provide inadequate decision-making criteria and inappropriate procedures for dealing with issues. Revised legislation should provide health care officials and agencies with the tools to balance individual rights against public health necessities. This article makes four recommendations for legislative reform: (1) remove artificial legislative distinction between venereal and other communicable diseases; (2) provide criteria defining public health necessity to limit discretionary exercise of police power by health officials; (3) provide strong confidentiality protections in the collection and storage of public health information; (4) empower public health officials to select from a graded series of less restrictive alternatives in dealing with public health problems

Global Health Law: A Definition and Grand Challenges

It has been only recently that scholars have engaged in a serious discussion of public health law. This academic discourse examines the role of the state and civil society in health promotion and disease prevention within the country. There is an important emerging literature on the international dimensions of health, but no similar systematic definition and exposition of a field we call global health law. In this article we aim to fill this gap by defining global health law and characterizing the grand challenges. Given the rapid and expanding globalization that is a defining feature of today\u27s world, the need for a coherent system of international health law and governance has never been greater. We begin with a discussion of the health hazards posed by contemporary globalization on human health and the consequent urgent need for global health law to facilitate effective multilateral cooperation in advancing the health of populations equitably. We then offer a definition of the emerging field of global health law. After explicating the central features identified in our definition, we turn to an examination of the grand challenges – legal, political, and social – to reaching the full potential of global health law to advance human health in just and effective ways. Our definition of global health law follows, and the remainder of this section explains the salient aspects of the definition: Global health law is the study of the legal norms, processes, and institutions needed to create the conditions for people throughout the world to attain the highest possible level of physical and mental health. The field seeks to facilitate health-promoting behaviour among the key actors that significantly influence the public\u27s health, including international organizations, governments, businesses, foundations, the media, and civil society. Global health law should stimulate investment in research and development, mobilize resources, set priorities, coordinate activities, monitor progress, create incentives, and enforce standards. The field should be guided by the value of social justice, and seek equitable distribution of health services, particularly to benefit the world’s poorest populations. The domain of global health law primarily is concerned with (1) formal sources of public international law, including, for example, treaties establishing the authority and responsibility of states for the health of their populations and duties of international cooperation, and (2) formal subjects of international law, including states, individuals, and public international organizations. However, to be an effective global health governance strategy, global health law must evolve beyond its traditional confines of formal sources and subjects of international law. It must foster more effective collective global health action among governments, businesses, civil society and other actors. Accordingly, our definition of global health law is prescriptive as well as descriptive: it sets out the sort of international legal framework needed, but still unavailable, to empower the world community to advance global health in accordance with the value of social justice