Lawrence O. Gostin

University Professor at Georgetown Law, Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. Author of the standard textbook on the law of public health in the United States and of the standard reference on global health law.

Why he matters here

Gostin defines, more than any other single figure, what the words global health law mean in institutional practice. A physiological rights argument that has any ambition to reach the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization or the Human Rights Council must sooner or later be tested against the vocabulary his institute uses.