Research Agenda
International Sustainable Development Health Law focuses on the implications of international economic, social and environmental legal regimes for several areas relevant to global health. It is the study of the international health law-making processes, regulation of international health services, trade in hazardous waste and products, including persistent organic pollutants, prior informed consent regimes for chemicals, and trade in ozone depleting substances.
International legal processes of interest might include the Rotterdam Convention, the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, and various oil spill or transboundary pollution prevention and liability regimes, as well as the World Health Organisation. Also of interest are recent WTO Panel Reports on Asbestos and other trade issues.
Recent projects have included Health Security and ISDL, corporate social responsibility and medical industries and the Americas Health and Environment Impact Assessment Project. Our work will be ongoing in the areas global pandemic management, intellectual patent law and essential medicines and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Research Areas
1. Americas Eco-Health Impact Assessments Project
The Americas Eco-Health Impact Assessment Law Project involves legal research and capacity building initiative in collaboration with research centres across Latin America and the Caribbean. The project was supported by IDRC from 2006 – 2010, and is advised by experts from the OAS, UNEP, IISD, and PAHO. It focused on the integration of health and environment issues in impact assessment laws, and studies how to strengthen the law making and implementation capacity of countries in the Americas. In October 2010, lessons learned and best practices in impact assessment laws were presented by CISDL Lead Counsel Dr. Maya Prabhu, CISDL and Director Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, research partners and project researchers at the Organization of American States, high level Summit on Sustainable Development in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It focused on sharing lessons about best practices. A Legal Working Paper series shares the outcomes of the research, and a new volume, on implementing the principles of the Espoo Convention and its Kiev Protocol on social and environmental impact assessments, is in the editorial stages.
2. Global Health and International Law Curriculum
CISDL Lead Counsel Dr. Maya Prabhu developed a series of lectures providing an overview of international legal regimes with relevance for global health. Presented since 2008 at both the McGill and Yale Faculties of Medicine, this guest lecture series can be developed into a manual or a book on global public health and sustainable development law. This year, lectures were given at the University of Wisconsin Law School including in its CLE curriculum. While many medical and law schools have begun to incorporate global health classes into their course offerings, we are aware of none which uses sustainable development law to translate health policy goals into concrete legal reality. The CISDL will continue to explore opportunities for presenting this curriculum to academic and policy audiences through participation in conferences, legal institutes, and CISDL-sponsored events.