Frameworks provide new paradigm for global health law

Aiming to provide a new model for global health law, a recent essay in the Journal of Global Health Law by Dr. Jennifer Prah of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) and Perelman School of Medicine outlines comprehensive frameworks for attaining global health justice.

“Global society needs a paradigm shift, an understanding of global health realities as problems that can and must be solved,” writes Dr. Prah, the Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics, and Policy and director of the Ortner Center on Violence & Abuse and founder and director of the Health Equity and Policy Lab at SP2.

The frameworks include Provincial Globalism and Shared Health Governance, both of which Dr. Prah previously laid out in her book  “Global Health Justice and Governance” (Oxford University Press, 2018). Provincial Globalism is a moral and ethical grounding in the concept that “human flourishing, the ability to live a good life, is a morally central aim shared by all humans.” Shared Health Governance provides a legal environment in which human flourishing can be achieved, progressing “toward a global health architecture in which state governments and global health institutions work in synchrony,” in Dr. Prah’s words. The proposed architecture includes a Global Health Constitution to establish standards of health justice cooperation, a Global Institute of Health and Medicine based on independent scientific evidence, and a Master Plan for Global Health that outlines implementation.

Together, Provincial Globalism and Shared Health Governance are meant to address the needs of the entire world community, beyond what Dr. Prah describes as “the current patchwork of state-based and multinational instruments.” Similarly, Dr. Prah’s essay describes how her Health Capability Profile provides a comprehensive tool for states to assess health justice by considering eight internal and seven external health capabilities that are necessary for a person to achieve optimal health.

Overall, Dr. Prah aims to provide the structures and tools to support a cohesive worldwide approach. “Under these theories, global health law is not a component of any country’s foreign policy or state interest nor a legally enforceable, coercively mandated rules regime imposed on states. Rather it is a collection of tools and processes bringing together state and non-state actors worldwide to achieve global health equity,” she writes.