From the Core to the Peripheries: Multilateral Governance of Malaria in a Multi-Cultural World

This article discusses multilateral malaria control strategy, the RBM, its mission, vision, and relationship with traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies, especially in Africa, where malaria is one of the biggest contributors to the burdens of disease. Because big multilateral partnerships like the RBM are almost always guilty of the charges of non-transparency, non-responsiveness, and insensitivity to the local constituencies they serve, I use Richard Falk\u27s twin concepts of globalism-from-above and globalism-from-below to explore the interaction between the RBM and traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies. In search of a transparent cosmopolitan malaria regime, I propose a transnational dialogue between all the relevant actors and stakeholders: multilateral health institutions, pharmaceutical corporations, indigenous populations, traditional healers, and civil society. We need to synthesize the tension between the core (policies of multilateral institutions) and the peripheries (traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies). This synthesis must proceed in a way that projects multilateralization of malaria as a humane enterprise rather than a predator that erodes age-long therapies of rural populations in malaria-endemic societies of the global South

Food Safety, South-North Asymmetries, and the Clash of Regulatory Regimes

This Article explores the globalization of food safety concerns driven by the phenomenon of economic globalization, and the legalization of food safety disputes within the rules-based architecture of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Focusing on the interaction between WTO norms and the treaties of other multilateral organizations, the Article discusses the implications of the clash of food safety regulatory regimes for South-North asymmetrical relations between the rich and poor countries. The Article also discusses global economic diplomacy and the emerging WTO jurisprudence on the Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures (SPS) disputes. This Article explores both the perceived and actual marginalization of most developing and least-developed countries by the embedded structural impediments and onerous obligations in food safety disputes. The Article discusses the European Union\u27s embargo on fresh fish from East African countries following a cholera outbreak and argues for mutually reinforcing linkages between the SPS and pre-existing food-safety-related norms, standards, and agreements of other multilateral organizations, including the emerging norm of the precautionary principle

From the Core to the Peripheries: Multilateral Governance of Malaria in a Multi-Cultural World

This article discusses multilateral malaria control strategy, the RBM, its mission, vision, and relationship with traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies, especially in Africa, where malaria is one of the biggest contributors to the burdens of disease. Because big multilateral partnerships like the RBM are almost always guilty of the charges of non-transparency, non-responsiveness, and insensitivity to the local constituencies they serve, I use Richard Falk\u27s twin concepts of globalism-from-above and globalism-from-below to explore the interaction between the RBM and traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies. In search of a transparent cosmopolitan malaria regime, I propose a transnational dialogue between all the relevant actors and stakeholders: multilateral health institutions, pharmaceutical corporations, indigenous populations, traditional healers, and civil society. We need to synthesize the tension between the core (policies of multilateral institutions) and the peripheries (traditional therapies in malaria-endemic societies). This synthesis must proceed in a way that projects multilateralization of malaria as a humane enterprise rather than a predator that erodes age-long therapies of rural populations in malaria-endemic societies of the global South

International law and communicable diseases.

Historically, international law has played a key role in global communicable disease surveillance. Throughout the nineteenth century, international law played a dominant role in harmonizing the inconsistent national quarantine regulations of European nation-states; facilitating the exchange of epidemiological information on infectious diseases; establishing international health organizations; and standardization of surveillance. Today, communicable diseases have continued to re-shape the boundaries of global health governance through legally binding and "soft-law" regimes negotiated and adopted within the mandate of multilateral institutions - the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Office International des Epizooties. The globalization of public health has employed international law as an indispensable tool in global health governance aimed at diminishing human vulnerability to the mortality and morbidity burdens of communicable diseases