Gian Luca Burci, associate professor of law at the Graduate Institute, has been appointed to the recently launched Commission on Global Health and the Law, sponsored by the venerable public health journal The Lancet and convened by Georgetown University. 

The Commission's focus is that law should be viewed as a major determinant of health and safety and can be utilised as a powerful and innovative tool to address pressing global health concerns. According to the Commission’s co-chairs, Lawrence O. Gostin and John T. Monahan, the aims of the Commission are to “define and systematically describe the current landscape of law that affects global health and safety” and the group will “make the case for the power of law to improve health while revealing current opportunities and challenges under the status quo”.

Over the next year and a half, the Commission specifically aims to: identify evidence-based means by which law can contribute to improved health and safety outcomes; enhance the ways in which health and safety are prioritised in law and policy; and examine how international organisations, governing processes, and instruments can support, reinforce, and incentivise countries’ development of domestic laws to improve their public’s health and safety. 

Gian Luca Burci was named Adjunct Professor at the Institute in 2012. He has served in the Legal Office of the World Health Organization since 1998 and has been appointed Legal Counsel in 2005. Professor Burci previously served as Legal Officer at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and in the United Nations Secretariat in New York for nearly a decade.

Read the full comment on the new commission, “Law’s Power to Safeguard Global Health”, online.