Meier Benjamin Mason, Finch Alexandra, Habibi Roojin
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States.
O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, United States.
J Law Med Ethics. 2025;53(S1):11-15. doi: 10.1017/jme.2025.21. Epub 2025 Apr 14.
The field of global health law encompasses both "hard" law treaties and "soft" law policies that shape global health norms. Transitioning from "international health law" to "global health law and policy," global health policymakers have increasingly looked to soft law instruments to address public health needs in a rapidly globalizing world - within the World Health Organization and across global health governance. Yet, as policymakers have expanded the landscape of soft law policy instruments to advance global health across state and non-state actors, the COVID-19 response revealed the limitations of this soft law approach to global health threats, with states now seeking hard law reforms to strengthen global health governance. As hard and soft law can provide complementary approaches to preventing disease and promoting health, future research must conceptualize how these normative frameworks interact in advancing global health.
全球卫生法领域既包括塑造全球卫生规范的“硬”法条约，也包括“软”法政策。从“国际卫生法”向“全球卫生法与政策”转变的过程中，全球卫生政策制定者越来越多地借助软法工具，在世界卫生组织内部以及全球卫生治理的范围内，应对快速全球化世界中的公共卫生需求。然而，随着政策制定者扩大软法政策工具的范围，以促使国家和非国家行为体共同推进全球卫生，新冠疫情应对暴露出这种应对全球卫生威胁的软法方法存在局限性，各国如今正在寻求进行硬法改革，以加强全球卫生治理。由于硬法和软法能够为预防疾病和促进健康提供互补方法，未来的研究必须明确这些规范框架在推进全球卫生方面是如何相互作用的。
