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Summer Conversation Series with Sam Halabi

The Internationalization of Public Health Law andthe Paradox of Civil Liability

Monday, July 9, 2012 12:00 1:30 PMGeorgetown University Law Center

E. B. Williams Library, Room 358600 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001

Sam HalabiAssistant Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law

Moderated by Susan KimProject Director, ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law

AbstractOver the past 15 years, there has been a revolution in public health law. Previously considereda undamentally national domain, sovereign states constructed their own health care systemsguided generally by what they regarded as necessary to provide or the populations within theirterritories. As barriers between peoples and goods have eroded at an unprecedented rate,measures adopted at the national level are now viewed as inadequate as health threats mayoriginate locally but quickly reach globally. States have thereore seen it in their interests todevelop coordinating and harmonizing instruments which address these global health threats.For example, the vast majority o sovereign states have ratied the World Health OrganizationsFramework Convention on Tobacco Control in order to reduce the disease burden imposed bya small number o global tobacco rms. States have updated and expanded the applicabilityo the International Health Regulations to coordinate international responses to outbreaks ocommunicable diseases. Other major international legal eorts lie in the wait like the proposedFramework Convention on Alcohol Control and even more ambitious proposals like Larry GostinsFramework Convention on Global Health. This Article addresses a barrier to the potential successo these and similar legal instruments. While states have developed some health-specic treatiesand sot law instruments to coordinate state-level conduct, they have allocated more powerulenorcement powers to private actors which may and sometimes will oppose the public healthagenda.

BiographyProessor Halabi earned his J.D. rom Harvard Law School, where he served as Articles Editorand Senior Editor or the Harvard International Law Journal. Ater graduating, he served as lawclerk to the Honorable Nanette K. Laughrey o the U.S. District Court or the Western District oMissouri, and practiced or two years with the Washington, D.C. ofce o Latham & Watkins. As an

attorney, Proessor Halabis practice ocused on transnational mergers and acquisitions and theregulation o nancial institutions. Between 2008 and 2010, Proessor Halabi served as a Fellowo the ONeill Institute or National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University ocusing onthe ormation and implementation o international legal instruments regulating health-relatedpolicies o governments and businesses. In 2008, he advised the Presidential Health Care PolicyWorking Group on current and proposed approaches to international ood and drug inspections.In 2010, Proessor Halabi addressed a special committee o the United Nations on the relationshipbetween decentralized health care systems and social inclusion as well as the U.N. Committee onthe Elimination o All Forms o Discrimination Against Women on Egypts compliance with theWorld Health Organizations Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.