As successor to the League of Nations’ Health Organization (LNHO) the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded on 22 July 1946 as a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), for the purpose of co-operation to promote and protect the health of all peoples. According to Article 1 of the WHO Constitution, the objective of the WHO is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Article 2 specifies the manner in which this objective is achieved. The WHO’s organizational structure is highly decentralized. The work of the WHO is carried out by the World Health Assembly composed of delegates representing Members; the Executive Board, consisting of 34 persons elected by the Health Assembly; the Secretariat, headed by a Director-General who is appointed by the Health Assembly on the nomination of the Board as the chief technical and administrative officer of the Organization; and six regional organizations, each consisting of a regional committee and a regional office.
The headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland.
This Research Guide is intended as a starting point for research on the World Health Organization. It provides the basic legal materials available in the Peace Palace Library, both in print and electronic format. Handbooks, leading articles, bibliographies, periodicals, serial publications and documents of interest are presented in the Selective Bibliography section. Links to the PPL Catalogue are inserted. The Library’s classification index code 157. Sanitary Law (Opium, etc.); World Health Organization (WHO) and subject heading (keyword) World Health Organization are instrumental for searching through the Catalogue. Special attention is given to our subscriptions on databases, e-journals, e-books and other electronic resources. Finally, this Research Guide features links to relevant websites and other online resources of particular interest.
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Diplomacy is undergoing profound changes in the 21st century, and global health is one of the areas where this is most apparent. The negotiation processes that shape and manage the global policy environment for health are increasingly conducted not only between public health experts representing health ministries of nation states but include many other major players at the national level and in the global arena. These include philanthropists and public-private players. As health moves beyond its purely technical realm to become an ever more critical element in foreign policy, security policy, and trade agreements, new skills are needed to negotiate global regimes, international agreements and treaties, and to maintain relations with a wide range of actors. The intent of this book is to provide learning tools for today’s broad group of “new health diplomats” in the landscape of this ever-shifting, complex technical and political arena. The case studies are told as the negotiations were experienced by individuals who participated in the various debates, dialogues, negotiations, or by experts who have studied them. This collection fills an important gap in both knowledge and practice providing insight on how negotiations on global health issues have transpired, the successes, challenges, failures, tools and frameworks for negotiation, mechanisms of policy coherence, ways to achieve global health objectives internationally, and how global health diplomac used as a foreign policy tool can improve relations between nations.
Rosskam, E., Kickbusch, I., 2011Rudiger Scholz illuminates the complex interplay between health law and WTO law. According to Scholz the core of the future work is the coordination of international legal regime.
Scholz, R., 2010Amid accusations of ineffectiveness and ‘politicization’, one of the most important United Nations agencies, the World Health Organization, finds itself engulfed in a crisis of confidence that has led some observers to question its continued viability. Even highly-placed members of WHO’s Secretariat fear that conflict and controversy have become endemic to the agency, compromising its effectiveness more than ever before. To assess the validity of these allegations, Javed Siddiqi evaluates the agency’s accomplishments from 1948 through 1985. Through this case study he illumines a strategic shift in WHO policyfrom the ‘vertical’ approach of targeting a single disease to a ‘horizontal’, multi-pronged attack on a spectrum of health problems. Concluding that politicization and ineffectiveness are not inseparable phenomena ofrecent origin, Siddiqi explains the WHO’s limited effectiveness in terms of both unavoidable constraints and avoidable deterrents.
Siddiqi, J., 1995The World Health Organization (WHO) tackles a range of problems in world health, from infectious and preventable diseases in the developing world to heart and lung disease in the developed world, as well as the global fight against AIDS. This book assesses the impact of a number of WHO campaigns that aim to eradicate diseases and promote good health worldwide.
Senker, C., 2004The global increase in food prices will plunge millions of people into hunger worldwide. Starvation and food shortage already caused food riots and are threatening to destabilize regimes.
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Internationaler Gesundheitsschutz und Welthandel : das Verhältnis des Gesundheitsvölkerrechts zum WTO-Recht / , 2010
World Health Organization / , 2004
Negotiating and Navigating Global Health: Case Studies in Global Health Diplomacy / , 2011
Historical dictionary of the World Health Organization / , 1998
World Health Organization / , 2004
Protection de la santé et sécurité alimentaire en droit international / , 2009
